Saving Grace
by Snapdragon247
Summary: Years later, Carter tries again to deal with Lucy's death when something rather unexpected happens. RR! FINAL CHAPTER UP!
1. Remember

DISCLAIMER: Anything that you don't recognize isn't mine, Kapische? Bene. Enjoy the story! Feedback is most appreciated (wink wink)  
  
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SAVING GRACE—CHAPTER ONE  
  
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"Hey, Carter, you're wanted in Exam 3," Nurse Abby Lockhart called down the hall. Dr. John Carter looked up to see Abby's head poking out of the doorway to the exam room and slung his stethescope over his shoulders. He reached the room in seconds.  
  
"What've we got?" He asked, taking the clipboard from Abby and skimming it briefly.  
  
"Chris Arco, 12, suffering from chronic nosebleeds for around two weeks now." Carter approached the bed where a red-haired boy lay, his distraught mother holding his hand. Carter whipped out his penlight and looked into the boy's eyes.  
  
"So, what's up Chris?" he asked the child, moving on to examine his nostrils.  
  
"Nothing really," was the brief response. Carter jotted some notes on the clipboard, and sat in a chair across from the patient and his mother, Abby looming in the corner.  
  
"So, Chris, about when are these nosebleeds occurring? How often, would you say?"  
  
"It's been happening nearly every day when he gets out of school. He's joined the drama club, you see. It's a very big thing for Chris," his mother answered, stroking her son's hair while he swatted at her with his hand to back off.  
  
"I see," Carter said, "What part do you have in the play now, Chris?"  
  
"I'm on the crew. We are painting the scenery right now." Carter made a final note on his clipboard andput thepen back into his pocket.  
  
"Do you use spray paint?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Well, that should solve our mystery. Abby, could we run a tox screen on Mr. Arco's blood, and get a chest CT?"  
  
"Sure thing, Carter," Abby said as she prepared a needle to draw the kid's blood. His mother made a sudden move to grip her son's arm.  
  
"What's wrong with him, doctor?"  
  
"Well, it shouldn't be too serious, but we will have to admit him for observation. It seems that Chris has been exposed to too many harmful paint fumes, possibly the area that they are painting in is not well ventilated." With that Carter turned and left, just before he could hear the child wince as Abby drew his blood.  
  
Carter glanced back. It suddenly hit him. This was Curtain Area 3. This was where he and his med student, Lucy, had been stabbed, right inside that room. Though the incident had occurred years ago, it was impossible for him to erase the images, the emotions, from his mind.  
  
It had happened so quickly, but despite that, Carter remembered every detail perfectly: The sight as he walked into the exam room calling for Lucy, only to find her sprawled on the floor, her own blood pooling around her, more scarlet than the rose that he had sent her for Valentine's Day.  
  
She had never received the rose.  
  
Carter had taken it from her home, with the intent to place it inside the white casket that held her body at the funeral a week later. By then, the once-perfect rose had dried and wilted.  
  
He couldn't bring himself to give Lucy a dead rose.  
  
As the memories stirred inside him, he felt the tears well behind his eyes. He turned and walked briskly to the washroom, ignoring the calls to him from his colleagues. Safely inside of the bathroom, he turned the faucet and let the water run cold, rubbing it onto his face with a paper towel. At that moment, the door swung open, and Pratt walked in.  
  
"Hey, what's up, Carter? You look like hell." Carter dried his face and turned to Pratt, forcing a small laugh.  
  
"News flash, Pratt: Everyone who works here looks like hell." Pratt snorted.  
  
"Guess you have a point there, man. Catch you later." Pratt turned and left. Carter strongly suspected that he had been sent by Abby or someone to check on him. Carter turned his face to the mirror in front of him. He stared at his reflection for a moment.  
  
"I'm fine," he told his reflection, willing himself to believe the words. Sighing, he gave up that approach and turned away. He looked at the small clock on the wall. It was 11:36 pm, nearly midnight, on September 20th. It would soon be September 21.  
  
Lucy's birthday.  
  
Lucy would have turned 31 in the next 24 minutes. By this time, Carter knew that he would have been married, would have made her his wife, his one and only. Actually, he knew that she was his one and only without being his wife. He had known since that first embrace on the roof.  
  
"You fought the good fight today, Lucy. And tomorrow, you'll fight another one." He had pulled her close to him then, and she relaxed, laying her head on his shoulder. He had comforted her as they sat there, on the roof of County. Carter knew that Lucy had felt it too. Something happened with them; they really connected.  
  
11:40. He knew he should get back to work. Carter picked up his stethescope off of the marble sink counter and returned it to its position around his shoulders. He opened the door of the restroom and the bright florescence of the lights hit him, reflecting off of the white walls of the clean hospital emergency room. Striding over to the reception desks, he glanced at the board.  
  
"Hey, Jerry, there really only two patients here?" The desk clerk looked up from his coffee.  
  
"Yep. Hard to believe, huh? Warm, fall night, you'd think that the place would be packed with gang bangers or something." Carter looked around, and noticed that the ER seemed oddly empty. He saw Abby's outline through in curtain area one, where she still treated the nosebleed kid and other nurses scurried about here and there, but the place was devoid of any doctors.  
  
"Jerry," Carter said, "I'm gonna go to the lounge. Shout if anything interesting happens, okay?"  
  
"Sure thing," Jerry called after him as he turned and headed into the lounge. He was surprised to find only Elizabeth and Neela there, sitting at a table, chatting over a cup of coffee. They were amid a fit of giggles when Carter walked through the door. His face contorted into an expression of confusion. The two women looked at him, grinning.  
  
"Hey, John," Elizabeth greeted him.  
  
"Did I miss something here?" The women burst into giggles again. Carter didn't even try to understand this one. He involved himself in pouring a cup of coffee instead, and sitting on a nearby couch.  
  
"Hey, you can sit with us, you know," Elizabeth told him matter-of-factly. Neela nodded in agreement. Elizabeth brushed a stray lock of her curly red hair out of her face, and Carter noted the look of sincerity in her eyes. Shrugging, he took his coffee over and sat at the round table.  
  
"Okay, then, so what's new with you?" He asked them. Elizabeth glanced at him nonchalantly.  
  
"Oh, you know, the usual British chatter concerning certain ridiculous aspects of American life. That sort of thing." Carter smiled, nearly snorting into his coffee mug. Neela just sat, looking shy. Carter didn't generally speak with her much, so they didn't know each other well.  
  
"So, Neela," Carter began, Neela snapping to attention at the mention of her name. "How do you like the ER rotation?" Neela tapped her cheek with her forefinger before answering.  
  
"Well, I suppose it's not too bad. A bit hectic, and the trauma's are more violent than I have ever imagined."  
  
"Tell me about it," Elizabeth broke in. "Sorry for interrupting," she added briefly to Neela. "That's one of the reasons that I came to Chicago from England, actually. I never get a chance to get that sort of surgical experience in the violent traumas back home."  
  
"I hate that about this country," Carter put in, setting his coffee on the wooden table. "It is hard to imagine how one human being could, say, stab another person so violently as to kill them. Especially if the victim was doing no harm." Instantly, Elizabeth's head snapped up. Carter just as quickly, after realizing what he had said, looked down into the black depths of his coffee. He felt a hand on his shoulder and knew that Elizabeth understood, and was trying to comfort him. Looking up, he saw that Neela looked slightly confused, being left out of the loop. He read the sympathy in Elizabeth's clear blue eyes. "I'm sorry, Elizabeth, I shouldn't have brought up. I really didn't mean to."  
  
Neela seemed to sense the awkwardness of the situation, and rose from the table. She silently cleaned her coffee cup out, and donned her lab coat.  
  
"I'm going to see if Abby needs help with...anything," she said quietly as she slipped through the door back to the halls of the ER. The door having swung shut, Carter looked at Elizabeth. He could see pain in her eyes.  
  
"I am so sorry, Elizabeth. I really am. I didn't mean to, it's just...you'd think that after nearly five years...oh, I don't know. And today, I'm remembering everything for some reason...and you're really the only other one left here who understands," Carter tried to blink back the tears that were welling in his eyes against his wishes. Elizabeth moved closer and rubbed Carter's back.  
  
"Yes," she said, "I know. And I wish that I could forget it just as quickly as I can remember. It was a horrific ordeal. And having to operate on someone that you know so well like that..." Her voice broke suddenly. Carter sighed. He glanced at his watch. 11:54, it read. Six more minutes. He swallowed hard.  
  
"I wish I could forget as much as you. But I never want to forget about Lucy."  
  
"Yes, John, I know that you loved her deeply. It's important that you remember that love, but you need to forget the horrors." She removed her hand from his back and rose to rinse her coffee mug in the sink. Her back turned, Carter sat up, and rested his chin on his hands.  
  
"Hey, Elizabeth?" He quietly tried to get her attention. She turned and looked at him with care.  
  
"Yes, John?" It was now 11:57. Three more minutes.  
  
"Tomorrow is Lucy's birthday." Elizabeth gazed at him for a moment, as if she wasn't expecting it, which, of course, she wasn't. She moved forward to Carter and wrapped him in a hug. They lingered like that for a moment. When Elizabeth pulled away, he could see a single tear on her cheek. She briskly wiped it away. Giving him a last look, she left the lounge. He was now alone.  
  
He cleaned his coffee cup, and sat down again on the hard wooden chair, head in his hands. He glanced at his watch. It was 11:59. 45 seconds left. How would his life have been different, he wondered, without Paul Sobriki's existence? Where he would have been able to love Lucy freely, without worrying about her time running out?  
  
Carter thought of Lucy, her beautiful grey-blue eyes, her blond hair, fair skin, and wonderful personality. As the second-hand ticked onto the twelve, signifying midnight, Carter held a moment of silence.  
  
"Happy birthday, Lucy Knight."  
  
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So what'd you think so far? The plot hasn't gotten going yet, but it's a start. I actually already have the next chapter written, so I will post that shortly.  
  
Until next time, toodles!  
  
And DON'T FORGET TO REVIEW!!! ( 


	2. Stable

DISCLAIMER: If you really care to read it, just click the back button on your browser and look at chapter 1. Enjoy the story! Remember to leave your comments in the form of REVIEWS!!!  
  
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SAVING GRACE- CHAPTER 2  
  
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The sirens screamed and tires screeched as the ambulance pulled into the Ambulance bay. Carter ran with Neela and Abby as the ambulance doors opened. Carter ran over to help unload the gurney. Doris helped to push the gurney out of the ambulance.  
  
"We've got a kid, around five years old, hit by a car. Unconscious at the scene, hasn't come around yet. Looks like she has a broken fib, internal injuries to be determined. Probable head trauma." They had the gurney and wheeled it into the ER. The child was a girl, and she was completely unconscious. Carter ran next to the gurney as they entered the ER and headed for Trauma 1.  
  
"...BP's 80/60, and I barely have a pulse," Abby was rattling off the girl's vitals. They arrived in the trauma room.  
  
"Okay, let's get a CBC, three units of blood, type and cross, dip of urine, CTs of the head and abdomen, start an IV saline drip, and watch her vitals closely," Carter instructed. His requests were carried out immediately, everyone bustling about, a blur of pale yellow as they all wore those plastic smocks over their scrubs. Carter looked at the girl. She was so small, with blond hair that was currently matted with dried blood from her head injury. That was about all that he could tell about her, though, at the moment. A sudden thought crossed his mind. "I'm gonna go look for the parents."  
  
Carter ripped off his own yellow smock, and threw it in the biohazard trash can before he left the room. He almost ran to chairs. There, he found only three people.  
  
"Are any of you here to see a little girl? She was injured in a car accident. No one?" Carter ran back to the trauma room. "Hey, Neela, what did you do with her personals?" Without looking up from the IV she was starting, she called back to him.  
  
"Under the counter over to your right." Sure enough, Carter found the plastic bag of the girl's clothing. He rummaged through it, looking for any information on who the girl was, where she had come from. He needed a name. He found nothing among her clothes. Carter groaned in frustration.  
  
"Dr. Carter, her lab results are back," Malucci handed him the envelope. Carter looked through it all quickly.  
  
"Looks like she has a splenic fracture...that's gonna need surgery...she has fractured her skull, there is a bit of brain swelling, cranial bleeding is minimal. her left leg is badly broken at the tibia...that can be easily handled. There's a nasty gash on her forehead, and some road burn on her side. Thanks," He said to Malucci, as he began to give treatment instructions. In the midst of the chaos, Jerry burst into the room.  
  
"Dr. Carter, the police are here. Want to speak to you about the Jane Doe that you've just brought in."  
  
"Okay, I'll be there in a second." Carter left the trauma room where the other nurses were working to stabilize the victim. He met two cops at chairs: One was rather tall, bald, looked about 50; the other was of average build, with a goatee and darker hair. They introduced themselves as officers James and Zimmer, and Carter introduced himself as well. He noticed that Zimmer carried a small, purple knapsack in his hands.  
  
"Officers, you wanted to see me?" Both of the men stood to talk to him.  
  
"Yes, thank you for taking her, doctor," Officer James told him, running his hand behind his neck anxiously. "How is she doing?"  
  
"She is stabilized. She is incredibly lucky that she didn't sustain more serious injuries."  
  
"What does she have, doc?" Zimmer asked him.  
  
"She has a skull fracture, but cranial bleeding and swelling of the brain are minimal. Her spleen has been fractured as well, but internal bleeding hasn't been too bad, either. We are giving her blood for those things. She also has a few nasty cuts on her body, bruising, and road burn, in addition to a badly broken left leg." The officers seemed shocked about the extent of the girl's injuries. "It could have been much worse." Carter quickly reassured them. Zimmer nodded, then shook his head quickly, as if coming out of a daze.  
  
"Has her family come around?" James asked. Carter shook his head.  
  
"No, nobody's showed up yet, as far as I know. Do have a name yet?"  
  
"No, we are hoping that she will wake up and tell us relatively soon. She's' just a Jane Doe right now," James told him.  
  
"We found this at the scene, though," said Zimmer, holding out the purple backpack to Carter. He took it, looking at it. It was small, child-sized, a bit dirty from the crash. He looked up at the officers.  
  
"Don't you guys want to keep this for evidence or something?" Zimmer shrugged.  
  
"Nah," he said. "Wouldn't be of much use to us. We have our guy down at the station now." He checked his watch. It was 12:47 am. "In fact, we better be getting back there. Lots of paperwork to fill out."  
  
"Here's my card, it's got the number of the station and my pager number. Call us if you get a family to show up here." He held out a business card, and Carter took, tucking it into the pocket of his lab coat.  
  
"Thank you both," he said as the two policemen turned and left through the sliding doors of the Emergency Room into the warm summer night. Carter headed back to the trauma room. He found Elizabeth and Pratt talking to the side. He approached them. "What's up?" He asked. They turned to include him in the conversation.  
  
"Pressure's building up inside her head from the fluids and the bleeding. It will kill her if it gets to be too much." Pratt told him.  
  
"And we might need to do surgery to stop the bleeding in her spleen. This girl's really lucky to be alive, but she is loosing a lot of blood." Corday said.  
  
"Okay, then. Prep the OR, and Pratt, do something to relieve the pressure in the skull. I'll see what else I can do." The two doctors left, leaving Carter alone with the girl in the room. He set the purple knapsack down with the rest of the girl's personal belongings, and turned to the patient.  
  
She was still stable, and her cuts had been cleaned. The gash on her forehead had not yet been sutured. Carter retrieved the supplies, sat on a stool, and began to suture the little girl's forehead carefully. He finished, after nine sutures, and sat back to look at his patient. She was on the board under his name, anyway. The poor girl breathed on her own, as her chest was perfectly fine, except for bruising. She had an oxygen mask on to make sure she got enough oxygen.  
  
Her hair still was matted with blood. Carter wasn't sure why, but he couldn't stand to look at that sight. After several minutes, he had cleaned most of the blood out of her hair. Once in recovery, the nurses would clean her up further. After a moment, Malucci came through the door.  
  
"Carter, we're taking your Jane Doe up to the OR now. It is free, and Elizabeth is going to perform the procedure herself," He told Carter.  
  
"All right then. Let's get this show on the road." The two men, after taking care of her monitors, wheeled the girl up into the elevator, then up to the Pre-Op room. An anesthesiologist took over, giving the child medication to put her under. Carter caught sight through a window of Elizabeth with a mask over her face and hair up in a cap, scrubbing up for the operation. She smiled at him and gave him the thumbs-up. He returned the gesture, and led Malucci back down to the ER.  
  
The place seemed quite quiet again. The paint-sniffing boy had been released, and the board only had three patients, one was Carter's Jane Doe, the other two had only minor complaints. Carter wandered back into the trauma room. On an impulse, he retrieved the girl's personal belongings, and took them into the lounge. The lounge was empty. Carter sat at the scrubbed wooden table, and set the small heap of clothes and backpack on the table.  
  
He wanted to look through the things to see if he could find a clue to her identity. He shifted through her clothes: A light blue summer jacket, a white t-shirt with a butterfly on it, blue jean capri pants, white socks and a pair of worn sneakers. the t-shirt, of course, was practically shredded because of the emergency team's scissors to get the shirt off of the girl.  
  
After checking every tag for a name, Carter carefully folded the clothes and put them back into the plastic bag of personal items. He placed the bag at the side of the table and picked up the backpack, setting it onto the table in front of him.  
  
Just before he got the chance to open the zipper, Abby chose that moment to push open the door and stomp into the lounge, looking annoyed. As soon as she spotted Carter, she exploded.  
  
"Carter." she started angrily, "what would you do if a drunk man tried to feel you up?" She looked at him with her eyes flashing angrily. Carter looked at her, confused as to why she cared about his opinion. It suddenly occurred to him that she didn't care; she was just trying to prove a point. He went along with it.  
  
"I would hit the guy," he said. "But fortunately I haven't been in that situation." Abby crossed her arms over her chest.  
  
"Well, I wish that I would have done that. I tried, actually. Pratt --" she stopped short when she saw Carter with the backpack on the table. Carter looked up at her, trying to ignore the fact that she'd caught him going through a patient's belongings. He tried, and failed, to divert her attention.  
  
"You were saying?" He looked at her expectantly. "What did Pratt do?" She didn't buy it.  
  
"Carter, what is that?" Carter shrugged.  
  
"It belongs to that Jane Doe that was hit by the car," he answered briefly.  
  
"And what are you doing with it? You know that we aren't supposed to be looking through the patient's belongings!" Abby exclaimed. "Isn't that, like, invasion of privacy or something?" Carter couldn't help laughing.  
  
"Abby, relax. The cops gave it to me to see if I could find any clues to the child's identity." Abby opened her mouth to counter, but Carter cut her off. "I don't think that the parents will mind me finding a faster way to let them know where their daughter is."  
  
Abby's mouth was opened again, as if she would say something, but she closed it again, choosing not to speak. Instead, she looked curiously at the backpack. She moved closer to the table, and bent over the small knapsack, clearly wondering what contents it held. Carter smiled and patted the chair beside him. She took the seat, placing her coffee mug on the table beside the backpack.  
  
"So what do you say?" Carter asked her, a note of eagerness in his voice. Abby seemed to be thinking about it. Then she smiled eagerly.  
  
"Let's see what we can find out about this little girl." Carter beamed at her, and Abby seemed to have forgotten the drunk man she had encountered earlier. Carter slowly opened the plastic zipper of the bag, and peeked inside.  
  
At first they found only small things: one by one, a pink hairbrush, a toothbrush, a small tube of toothpaste, a bar of white soap in a Ziploc bag, one changes each of underwear and socks, one extra t-shirt. Then Carter removed a lunchbox, containing two juice bags, soda crackers, a Tupperware of what unmistakably was peanut butter, and an orange. It looked as if there had once been more food in the box.  
  
"Wow," Carter mumbled.  
  
"Yeah," Abby marveled at the cleverness of the girl who packed the items. "It looks like she was running away. At least she packed practical things."  
  
Near the bottom of the bag, there was a small, rectangular box, with a lid that was tied on only by two rubber-bands. Abby took the box, and held it, looking it over, disputing whether or not to open it. Carter, looking deeper, pulled out the two last objects from the girl's knapsack: A little pink Hello Kitty change purse, and a light blue stuffed animal, an octopus. The animal was an interesting one, as it appeared to have been homemade. The toy had two black buttons for eyes, and looked a bit dirty and worn, presumably from being carried so many places.  
  
"Hmmm..." Carter said, unzipping the change purse and counting the money inside. "It looks like this girl had...six dollars and forty-five cents." Across the table, Abby had pulled the rubber-bands off of the box, and was shuffling through what seemed to be photographs.  
  
"All I've got here are photos of people...probably the girl's mother and grandmother," Her brow furrowed. "Here's an envelope, unopened." She laid it on the table. Carter looked at it.  
  
"We can't open this. It probably wouldn't be of any use to us, anyways," Carter said, pushing it at Abby, who placed it back into the box. "Any addresses, phone number, there? Anything?" Abby shook her head.  
  
"Nope, sorry Carter," She said, disappointed. She tied the bands back on the box and put it back into the bottom of the backpack. Carter stared, lost in thought, while Abby replaced all of the items back into the knapsack. This girl must have been looking for something, Carter thought.  
  
"Hey, Carter, look at this!" Abby said suddenly, jolting him out of his thoughts and back into the real world.  
  
"What?" He asked, confused for a moment.  
  
"Here, look," Abby shoved the backpack into his arms, pointing at the inside.  
  
Inside, on a small white cloth tag, were three initials: G.E.K.  
  
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Ooooooohhh....Do I have your attention now? Is that suspenseful enough for you?  
  
For all of you smart-alecs out there who are sure that you have the plot of the story all figured out, don't be so sure of yourselves.  
  
Remember to READ AND REVIEW!!! I can't make the story any better if you don't tell me what you want to see in it ( 


	3. Ambiguous Thoughts

DISCLAIMER: If you really have the urge to read this again, go back to chapter one and read it. No one's stopping you (not that anyone actually likes the disclaimers, anyway...)  
  
So now, on to Chapter 3! This one's short, but Chapter 4 will be longer to compensate (  
  


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SAVING GRACE- CHAPTER 3  
  


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A key turned in the lock of the apartment. The door swung open and Carter stepped in from the hall. It was cool in the apartment building, not like outside. The night was warm, but the Chicago people and pollution made it seem much harder. Carter dead-bolted the door, and dropped his keys onto the table near the door.  
  
The apartment was a modest one. Now that Carter had finally inherited some of his family's money, he could afford to live in a nice apartment of his own. The flat was a nice two-bedroom one, with a nicely furnished kitchen and bathroom. There was the kitchen, with table and four chairs, not that he really needed more than two anyway. And there was a living room, and a study, and a nice little walk-out balcony from which one could see Lake Michigan clearly. Carter hardly ever used that balcony. Now, as he looked out, the sun was rising. It was 6:30 in the morning, and his shift had just ended. Another one would begin again at 3:00.  
  
Carter snorted. It had been a very long time since he had gotten eight hours of sleep at one time. It didn't look like he would start now. He wandered over to the refrigerator, suddenly quite aware that his stomach was growling rather painfully. He opened the door and looked inside to find various food items, including a quart of orange juice and two or three half-eaten cartons of Chinese take-out food. He fished around in the drawers of the fridge.  
  
"Don't I have any vegetables around here?" he muttered to himself as he unwittingly found a plastic bag of what looked like it might have contained a head of lettuce some weeks before. He wrinkled his nose, and tossed the once-vegetable down into his garbage can. Back to the refrigerator, he rummaged through various salad items. His hand found a single carrot. He snorted to himself.  
  
The carrot looked relatively unharmed, untouched by any sort of mold or fungus. It was just a carrot. He washed it in the sink, and set it aside. He grabbed a carton of Chinese food at random and stuffed it into the microwave, nuking it to an edible temperature. Carter waited for it to heat. He turned back to the carrot. Another memory struck him unexpectedly.  
  
He remembered the early days of Lucy's first ER rotation. She had been pleasantly gullible and relatively naive. The patient had punctured his intestine with a carrot, a whole carrot. Lucy had been mesmerized.  
  
"A whole carrot? How can somebody swallow a whole carrot?" Carol had been there too.  
  
"He didn't swallow it," She said. Lucy raised her eyebrows and understood.  
  
"Oh," she had said, a look of mild bewilderment on her face, undoubtedly wondering why on earth anyone would be so stupid.  
  
"Yeah," Carter had replied, clearly laughing on the inside at her stupidity.  
  
That joke had gone on for weeks. It was one of the only things that the ER staff had had to laugh about.  
  
The microwave suddenly went off. Carter grabbed the container and a fork and began to eat the lo-mein without even sitting down. He stood like that, leaning on the kitchen counter, eating his makeshift breakfast, almost thoughtless.  
  
He didn't know why he was suddenly thinking of Lucy all the time. It confused him, really. For the past, well, four and a half years, he had tried his best to forget about Lucy. Something deep within his mind had told him that that would be impossible, and he really didn't want to forget her. After he became addicted to painkillers, he tried to get over it. Just because he finally became aware that he was taking physical painkillers for a pain that could not be cured with a pill or an injection. The loneliness, the guilt, the psychological pain, was too much, but he decided, with help, of course, that he would cope with Lucy's death. He even began to correspond with Lucy's mother, Barbara, through letters. She helped him realize his pain, she helped him to cope with his sadness.  
  
And he had gone on with his life as best he could. But, on some days, thoughts of Lucy, and a very little bit of pain, worked its way into Carter's mind. There was nothing that he could do about it. Lately, though, it was as if the clock had been turned back to the days following Valentine's Day 2000. He truly could not forget about her.  
  
Carter threw his container of Chinese food into the garbage, having eaten barely a dozen bites of the food. The fork was washed and returned to the drawer that he had pulled it out of earlier. He paused at the carrot, then, with a nonchalant sweep of his hand, the carrot dropped into the wastebasket.  
  
Declining a shower, Carter opted to go straight to sleep. He stripped to his boxers and situated himself underneath his bedcovers. Setting his alarm clock for 2:00 pm, he tried to drift off into sleep. Eventually he succeeded. He tried not to think of Lucy, but try as he may, he could not extinguish his memories of her from his mind.  
  
Somehow, Carter got through six hours of a dreamless sleep. Awakened by the annoying buzzer on his alarm clock, Carter grumbled and rubbed his eyes. He then proceeded to pound the 'off' button on the clock. Still a bit groggy, he pushed back his sheets, and sat on the edge of his bed for a moment. He tried to gain full orientation (you know how people are when awoken from sleep) for a moment. Awkwardly, he rose and headed to his closet for fresh clothes to change into, but on the way, his foot caught onto a leg of his bureau, causing it to shake. As Carter recovered his balance, he bumped the bureau again, this time causing something to fall off. He winced as he heard glass crack.  
  
He stood carefully, running his fingers nervously through his hair. Crossing the bare wood floor, he investigated the source of the noise. Sure enough, nearly behind the bureau was a picture frame, lying face down on the floor. Before he had even seen the photograph that it contained, he knew which it was. He gingerly turned over the frame.  
  
"Dammit!" he groaned. It had been his best picture of Lucy. Her sparkling blue eyes were now looking up at him from behind a spider-web series of cracks in the glass of the frame. She looked radiant in the photograph, her hair tousled a bit from the fun she was having at the time, cheeks with a pink blush, white med coat on, stethoscope slung behind her neck, teeth white as they were revealed by her laughter. She wore no makeup, but she had natural beauty. Carter smiled to himself.  
  
That day that the picture had been taken had been a fun one. There had been a bunch of the ER staff messing around in the lounge, waiting for the action of the hospital to pick up a little. Everyone from before had been there: Peter, Mark, Doug, Carol, Elizabeth, Chuni, Yosh, even Jerry had been there. Somebody, Carter couldn't remember who, had brought in a camera. They had all been laughing up a storm, making stupid poses at the camera. Carter remembered when he, Peter, Doug, Elizabeth and Carol and Lucy had tried to make a sort of human pyramid, and toppled over, laughing, after Doug had "sneezed" on purpose, causing everyone to topple to the floor before Jerry could capture the moment on film.  
  
Carter almost laughed out loud when he remembered Elizabeth, Lucy and Chuni doing their little 'Charlie's Angels' pose, and when Carter himself had busted out the James Bond attitude, Elizabeth all the while criticizing Carter's phony British accent. Mark had made several bozo faces into the camera.  
  
The shot of Lucy that Carter now held in his hand was an after-shot. Lucy and Carol had been fooling around in front of the camera lens. Lucy couldn't hold a straight face, neither could Carol, and Jerry had unintentionally snapped that photo of Lucy. He had given it to him later, saying that he could blackmail her with it (she had hated that photograph herself). Of course, he had done nothing of the sort. He had put it into the frame and kept it with him since the day he received it.  
  
Carter made a mental note to buy another photo frame, and set the cracked one back onto his bureau. Collecting his clothes, he made his way to the bathroom and took a shower letting the warm water hit his bare back. He dried himself with a towel, dressed, combed his hair, and, after a quick cup of instant coffee, brushed his teeth.  
  
Carter put on his watched and glanced at the rectangular face. 2:31. He had to hurry if he wanted to catch the train in to the hospital on time. He grabbed his keys off of the table by the door, and left the apartment. He locked the door behind him, the lock clicking into place as Carter left for another day in the ER.  
  


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Anyways, like I said, I am definitely gonna make the next chapter longer, and I should post tomorrow or the day after, so you shouldn't have to wait in suspense for so long (  
  
Many thanks to my 2 reviewers, MeliGirlJO and tv-crazy for their support through their reviews. The rest of you should learn from their examples  
  


* * *

  
Until next time,  
  
Snapdragon 


	4. Shared Memories

DISCLAIMER: Anyone or anything that you recognize as part of the ER series is not mine. The plot, however, belongs to me.  
  
Now, for chapter 4!  
  
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SAVING GRACE- CHAPTER 4  
  
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"Hey, Carter. You on again?" Frank greeted Carter as he walked through the ER doors and felt the relief of air conditioning hit him.  
  
"Of course, Frank. This place is my life. What's new?" he replied as he made his way to the lounge.  
  
"Nothing much, at all. We're not incredibly busy, so there's no hurry to get changed and out here." Frank sat back at the computer.  
  
"Oh, Frank, what's up with my Jane Doe?" Frank furrowed his eyebrows in question.  
  
"I don't know anything about a Jane Doe." Now it was Carter's turn to look confused.  
  
"Yeah, they brought her in just after midnight. Kid hit by a car, parents never showed up...?" Frank shook his head.  
  
"Sorry, Carter. Doesn't ring a bell at all. Try asking Kerry or someone."  
  
"I'll do that, thanks," Carter called back as he left for the lounge. After throwing on his lab coat and stethoscope and pulling on his work shoes, he went back out into the ER. Checking the board, he saw that the girl was in recovery from an operation. Carter, with surprise, found that she was somehow still in the ER, in Curtain one. He made his way there, running into Kerry Weaver halfway.  
  
"Oh, watch it Carter," a disgruntled Kerry said, quickly regaining balance before she fell. Carter reached out to help steady her.  
  
"Sorry, Kerry," he apologized. He headed back to Curtain one.  
  
"Hey, Carter, your Jane Doe is fine," Kerry called to him. He doubled back to meet her.  
  
"You've been treating her? How is she?" Carter asked Kerry, trying to get an update on the patient.  
  
"She's doing phenomenally well, for what she's been through in the last fourteen hours," Kerry said, leading the way over to curtain area one. "She is out of surgery, which went well. They were able to repair her spleen, and she received a unit of blood. Somehow, the excess fluid in her cranuim drained out, and the swelling is going down progressively. We are pretty sure that there is no brain damage from the pressure buildup," Carter let out a sigh of relief as they approached the area that the girl was being kept in.  
  
He pulled back the curtain to find that she was not on a ventilator, but still had the oxygen being given to her. Her broken leg had been set and was in a cast, and the blood had been cleaned from her skin by one of the nurses.  
  
"She unconscious?" Carter asked Kerry, taking his stethoscope and measuring her heart rate and listening to breathing sounds.  
  
"She's still out of it from when she had the surgery. She hasn't woken up yet from the anesthesia." Carter nodded.  
  
"All right, then. Call me if she wakes up or if her parents come by," he told her as he left the curtain area. As he was coming down the hall, he heard Frank calling.  
  
"Apartment fire coming in. Luckily there were only two victims, ETA around a minute!" He shouted from the desk. Carter ran to the desk.  
  
"I'm on it," he told Frank. He went out to the ambulance bay to wait, and was soon joined by Susan and Luka. They waited as the ambulance pulled in and began to unload the patients.  
  
"We've got a Hispanic female, mid to late twenties, some smoke inhalation and first degree burns. Also got her 3-year old son, severe smoke inhalation, and first degree burns." The paramedic began to rattle off stats for the mother and child as they were lifted out of the ambulance and wheeled inside of the ER. Both were taken into Trauma 2.  
  
"Luka, take the kid, and I'll deal with the mother. Gallant, you're with me. Susan, help Luka out with the kid," Carter told them urgently. Susan left and Gallant appeared at Carter's side.  
  
"What can I do?" he asked Carter, who was rushing to get an oxygen mask on the patient while a nurse hastily cut off her clothes, away from her burns.  
  
"Get her a blood gas, type and cross match, cell count, and check her white cells. I can get an x-ray of the chest to make sure that her lungs are clear. This one looks like she'll pull through, though." Pratt nodded.  
  
"Right," he said. "I'm on it." He went off to get the tests done, and Carter stayed with the woman, who wasn't improving a great deal.  
  
"Okay, bump that O2 up to 50%, start a saline drip at 500 an hour to re- hydrate her. See if you can't get some Hydrol to put on those burns," Carter resumed his work on the patient. He saw Luka and Susan working feverously on the child. Carter quickly whipped out his stethescope and listened for vitals.  
  
"We've got stridous breathing sounds, and a thready pulse. BP seems normal, though. Think you can manage without me for a minute?" he asked the nurse. She nodded.  
  
"Sure thing, Dr. Carter," he thaned her quickly and made his way over to the smaller victim.  
  
"How is he?" Luka shook his head.  
  
"Not well," he said, a bit of his Croatian accent slipping through. "Weak pulse, low BP, not breathing on his own, and he is dehydrated and not fighting to the burns well." Susan worked to check and recheck the boy's vitals.  
  
"Start a saline drip?" Carter asked Luka.  
  
"750 an hour." Carter thought for a moment.  
  
"Try magnesium on him yet?" Luka looked shocked.  
  
"Magnesium?" he asked, confused. Carter nodded.  
  
"Yeah, helps to draw the carbon monoxide out of his blood, so he will be able to get oxygen to those burned tissues easier," he explained. Luka thought for a moment.  
  
"All right, let's give him 3ccs of 5% magnesium sulfate." Susan loaded a syringe and injected. The three of them stood and waited. After about half a minute, his stats began to improve. Luka smiled. Susan turned to Carter.  
  
"Nice call, John." He beamed.  
  
"Thanks, Susan." He went back to check on his own patient.  
  
Once Carter had made sure that both of the patients were relatively stabled enough to leave them, he slung his stethoscope behind his neck, and left the trauma room. He found the admitting desk in a rather cheerful mood, knowing that he had made a difference to a mother and her child. He found Frank at the computer.  
  
"Hey, what else do you have here?" Frank gestured toward the clipboard rack.  
  
"Well, let's see. Take your pick: vomiting woman, old guy with leg pains, or construction worker with glass embedded in his shoulder?" Carter grabbed a clipboard.  
  
"I'll take door number three, Johnny," he said jokingly. He made his way over to chairs where he found a middle-aged, bespectacled, burly man clutching a blood-soaked towel to his right shoulder. "Mr. Richards?" The man nodded. "Follow me, please."  
  
After removing the glass, cleaning, packing, and dressing the wound, and having the guy sit around for observation, Carter left for the lounge feeling pretty good about his day so far. He was only a couple of hours into his shift, but it looked like a good start. He headed for the lounge, and pushed the door open.  
  
The lights in the room were out, and sunlight streamed in through the window as the sun began to sink in the sky. When Carter entered the room, though, something seemed off. A soft sniffle from the couch helped Carter pinpoint the problem.  
  
There, sitting on the old sofa with knees pulled up nearly to her chin, cup of coffee in one hand and a tissue in the other, sat Elizabeth. Her eyes were slightly red and puffy, her red hair a bit tousled from a long shift. The moment she spotted Carter, she tried to calm herself. She turned away from him as fast as she could, but was not quick enough.  
  
"Oh, I'm sorry, Elizabeth," Carter started in awkwardly. He began to back away. "I can leave you to yourself if you like. Sorry to have disturbed you." He turned to leave.  
  
"No, no, don't be silly," She told him. He lingered for a moment.  
  
"Are you sure?"  
  
"Yes, of course, go get a cup of coffee or something. I'll be okay," she said, staying on the couch and crumpling her tissue in her hand. Carter cautiously approached her.  
  
"Are you all right? You don't look so great." Elizabeth stopped for a moment.  
  
"Well, I suppose I'm not, but I did just get off of a particularly long shift. Actually, I'm not off yet. I still have about an hour to go yet." She took another sip of her coffee and straightened up. Carter smiled gently at her.  
  
"Um, do you mind me asking, what is bothering you? Is there anything I can do to help?" She sniffled again, and sighed heavily.  
  
"I can't believe this. I thought I was over it already, but I guess I wasn't and I should be...It wasn't my fault, really, but it really was, and there's obviously nothing that I can do now, but still..." she rambled on, voice growing thicker from a sob that was choking her, forcing its way out. She unraveled the tissue and buried her face in it. Carter grabbed the tissue box off of a table and handed it to Elizabeth.  
  
"What's wrong? What was your fault?" he asked, out of pure curiosity. Elizabeth looked at him meaningfully, and Carter read in her eyes what was upsetting her so. His own eyes widened.  
  
"No!" He said, "No! I don't believe it, not you too. What is suddenly making you think about, about her?" Elizabeth shook her head.  
  
"It is her birthday," she answered flatly. "I'm sorry, would have been," she corrected herself. She burst into sobs again before he could stop her. "She trusted me to get her through it. I had just told her about all of the horrible things that had happened, and what did she do? She thanked me for helping to save her. But I didn't save her, I couldn't."  
  
Carter looked at her helplessly. All he could do now was lend a sympathetic ear and hope not to become emotional himself. He sat on the couch beside her and rubbed her back. She looked up at him.  
  
"She knew she was having a PE, and I could tell she was scared. I had told her though, I told her I would get her through it, and she swallowed her fear and looked up at me with a look of pure trust. She trusted me with her life. I failed her." She sobbed again. Carter felt himself growing a lup in his throat.  
  
"It wasn't your fault. You did the best that you could. It couldn't have been stopped," Carter told her. She was now sobbing uncontrollably.  
  
"I C-c-called it! I called it," She said between tears. "I killed her. We should have tried harder, gone up to 300, to 325, to 360, even 400. We could have gotten her back. But I didn't. I just stood there, frozen."  
  
"It's okay, Dr. Corday, you tried your best. Some patients are beyond your help," Carter gave her a hug, and she broke down. She was shaking in his arms. He awkwardly tried to comfort her, which was incredibly difficult as he could not even comfort himself on this issue. He couldn't imagine how awful Elizabeth felt. Lucy's last words had been of appreciation and thanks to her, after all.  
  
"She had her life ahead of her," she cried. "She was young, pretty, smart, and she had so, so much potential, and I deprived her of that." That was all it took to get a tear to roll down Carter's cheek. Elizabeth handed him a tissue, and he dabbed it away quickly. Elizabeth relaxed a bit, comforted by Carter's hug. They stayed like that for a minute or so in silence, just lost in their own thoughts. After a while, Elizabeth dried her eyes, and stood up from the couch.  
  
"I suppose I'm being stupid," she told him, "doting on things of the past, when really I need to be here in the present. I will never be able to forget her, though." Carter nodded iin agreement. He rose and poured himself a cup of coffee as Elizabeth left the lounge.  
  
He had never truly appreciated Elizabeth, really. She had been there when Lucy passed on, there when she spoke her last words, took her last breath. She had fought, with Romano, to save Lucy's life. She hadn't succeeded, but she had fought the good fight all the same.  
  
The good fight. That's what it was all about in the end after all. He remembered telling Lucy that sometimes, you just have to walk away knowing that you fought the good fight.  
  
And somewhere, deep inside him, he heard a voice just then. Maybe it was his conscience, or maybe he was just crazy. Or maybe, just maybe, it was Lucy looking down on him, whispering in his ear.  
  
"You fought the good fight for me, Carter. Tomorrow, you will move on to fight another one."  
  
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That's all for chapter 4!!!  
  
The next chapter is when things really start moving.  
  
Thanks to all of my reviewers for your feedback. I am glad that you kept reading ( 


	5. Awake

DISCLAIMER: To read this, if you have the desire, please click the back button on your browser. Don't forget to come back to this page and read, though!  
  
So, without further ado, chapter 5!!!  
  
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SAVING GRACE- CHAPTER 5  
  
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"All right, Michael, I need you to hold very still for me while I make sure that there's no more glass here," Carter told the 11-year old boy sitting on the bed in the suture room. The boy nodded at him and held his foot out to Carter.  
  
"Will it hurt much?" Michael asked nervously. Carter smiled at the child.  
  
"It shouldn't. I've put some lidocaine on the cut to numb the area while I look at it," He reassured the boy before beginning the exploration of the wound with forceps. After removing a few stray bits of glass, he sterilized the area, and irrigated the wound. "Okay, all clear." Michael smiled.  
  
"So can I go now?" he asked, making a move for his shoes.  
  
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on, speed demon. I still need to give you some stitches," the child's face fell.  
  
"How many?"  
  
"I don't know, maybe six or seven." Michael looked a bit frightened. "Oh, come on," Carter reassured him. "You'll have something cool to show to your friends."  
  
"I dunno..." Michael threw an apprehensive look at the suturing instruments on the cart next to the bed he sat on. Carter followed his eyes.  
  
"I know that they look scary, but they won't hurt at all." Carter took the boy's foot and gently pinched near where the wound was. "Does that hurt you at all?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Did you feel anything at all?" The boy shook his head.  
  
"Nope," he told Carter. Carter smiled gently.  
  
"Then shall we get these stitches over with or what?" Michael nodded.  
  
"Sure." Carter reached for the antibiotics, and applied some to the cut. He took a look at the laceration again.  
  
"Now, the cut's pretty deep, so I have to do a few stitches inside of your foot first. They are called subcutaneous stitches."  
  
"What does that mean?"  
  
"Just that they are under the skin. Okay?"  
  
"Whatever. Go ahead," the boy looked away as Carter began to suture the wound. After a few moments, he had finished the subcutaneous sutures. He was about to start in on the cutaneous stitches when Jing-Mei Chen came into the room.  
  
"Hey Carter, Kerry sent me to take over for you. Your Jane Doe is waking up," she told him urgently. Carter put the suturing tools back on the tray and stood up. Michael raised his eyebrows.  
  
"Hey, Doc, where are you going?" He asked. "Please finish these stitches before you go." Carter shook his head.  
  
"No, another patient needs me right now, I'm sorry Michael. Deb here is going to finish up with your stitches. I promise she is twice as nice as me," Carter turned to Jing-Mei. "Thanks a lot for coming to get me."  
  
"Sure, where are you with this kid?"  
  
"I've done the subcutaneous already, you just need to finish up with him," he told her. She nodded.  
  
"Go, Kerry said it was urgent." Without another word, Carter turned and swept out of the suture room and down the hall to the curtain area where the girl was being held. He pushed open the door and found Kerry there, leaning over the girl's bed.  
  
The little girl looked like she was drifting in and out of consciousness. She still had a few tubes and IVs, but she was breathing on her own, getting enough oxygen with the help of a mask. Kerry looked up when he entered, and hobbled over to talk with him.  
  
"Hey, what's up? Deb said that she was waking up," Carter said to her, glancing around the room. Kerry nodded.  
  
"Yes, she's been drifting in and out, but she started to wake up and moan. I've increased her morphine levels so she doesn't feel a lot of pain. She is doing quite well, for what she's been through. Her external injuries don't seem to be having a lot of problems," Kerry told him.  
  
"What are her vitals?" Kerry handed him her chart, and he looked over the notes on it. She was recovering well.  
  
"Have you gotten a name yet? Where are the parents?" Carter sighed.  
  
"Yeah, I've tried a lot, but the closest that I got to a name were the initials 'G.E.K.' on her backpack. Nobody has come in looking for her, but the cops have put her picture in the missing person's database." A small whimper from the bed in the corner made them both look up abruptly. The two of them rushed to her bedside.  
  
The child's head was lolling a bit from side-to-side. Her eyes half- opened. For a moment, she looked rather confused. Kerry stroked her hair.  
  
"Shhh...it's okay sweetheart," she cooed. "Do you know where you are?" The girl began to shiver.  
  
"N-no, no," she told them. "Yes, maybe, I don't know, I don't know where I am." Carter watched her. She looked so scared and confused.  
  
"You're at a hospital, honey," Kerry told her gently. "You were in an accident, remember?" The girl was still shaking. The door opened and they all turned as Susan came into the room.  
  
"Kerry, could I speak with you?" she asked, peering into the room.  
  
"Sure, what is it?" Kerry walked over to Susan.  
  
"Your patient in 2 wants a diagnosis. I told him that the tests weren't finished yet, but..." she trailed off. Kerry waived her hand impatiently.  
  
"Yes, yes, yes, let's go, let's go." Kerry started to leave the room. "Can you handle this, Carter?"  
  
"Yeah, I can. She is my patient," he called after Kerry's retreating form. He turned back to the child. She was sitting upright now. He wondered how she wasn't feeling pain, how she was able to sit up at all.  
  
"I am in a hospital?" she asked him meekly. Carter nodded, and tried to summon his most soothing voice to talk to her. Before he could, though, her eyes filled with terror, and she burst into sobs that wracked through her small body. Carter approached her, and tried to soothe her by stroking her hair. He tried to ease her back into her bed, so that she was lying down again. She wouldn't do it.  
  
"It's okay, it's okay, don't worry," Carter tried to calm the girl, but she was still sobbing and shaking. "What's wrong?" She sniffled a little.  
  
"I don't w-want to be here," she cried, choking on her sobs. Tears ran down her face and she wouldn't stop shaking. Carter tried to ease her back into her bed, again without success. He spoke to her softly.  
  
"Why not? I won't hurt you," Carter told the child, who looked away from him, eyes darting around the room quickly. She looked at Carter with frightened eyes.  
  
"I'm scared. I don't want to die. People only come to hospitals when they are going to die. I know that from experience," she teared up again. Carter was impressed for a moment that the girl's vocabulary was so advanced. He snapped out of his thoughts quickly, and carefully rubbed her back with his hand. She continued crying.  
  
"Nothing will hurt you as long as I am here," He reassured her. She looked up at him with skeptical eyes.  
  
"How do I know that I can trust you?" she asked.  
  
"You don't, but you have to. I promise that nothing here will kill you," Carter told her. The sobbing diminished slowly, and she looked straight ahead at the door. She turned her head to him.  
  
"You promise?" she asked him. Carter put his hand up to his heart.  
  
"I promise," he said. She stopped crying, but was still shaking a little bit from the episode. She sniffled a little, then tried to lie back down on the bed. Carter put his hand behind her back to support her. When she was lying down again, he pulled over a stool and sat down at her bedside, grabbing her chart to jot down notes.  
  
"How are you feeling now?" he asked her. She shrugged.  
  
"It hurts all over."  
  
"Where specifically?" Her eyes turned up a bit, as she thought. Carter waited for her answer.  
  
"My tummy hurts, and my head, and my leg," she told him. Carter jotted the notes down onto the clipboard. The child's eyes wandered down to her leg, which was now in a lavender-colored cast. Her eyes widened. "My leg! What happened?"  
  
"You were hit by a car, and you broke your leg. We had to put it in a cast," Carter replied. She responded by reaching down to touch it. The pain in her belly became too much, though, and she recoiled back into her position reclining on the bed.  
  
"Oh," she said quietly. She thought for a moment. "What else happened?" Carter sighed softly. The prospect of explaining the injuries to the little girl was not a happy one. She would probably get hysterical again. He pretended to be writing something else down on the clipboard, avoiding her gaze. She raised her voice louder.  
  
"What happened to me?" she asked. Carter set down the clipboard, put his hands on his knees and leaned forward.  
  
"When you were hit by the car," he explained, "you hurt a lot of your body. You fractured your skull, broke your leg, cut your forehead and arms and got a road burn on your back. You also have fractured your spleen."  
  
"Did I need surgery?" Carter hesitated for a moment.  
  
"Yes, you did," the girl looked shocked. "We had to go into your tummy and fix your spleen. Do you know what your spleen it?" To his great surprise, the child nodded her head.  
  
"Of course I know what the spleen it. I am a big girl. I'm not stupid." This answer took Carter yet again by surprise. He cleared his throat.  
  
"And how old are you?" She smiled proudly, and looked up at him.  
  
"I am five." Carter raised his eyebrows. She was certainly an intelligent child, that's for sure.  
  
"Wow, you are a big girl," he told her, smiling. She beamed, and, putting her hair behind her head, shifted her head down on the pillow.  
  
"Yep," she said. "They told me that I was advanced for my age." Carter looked up at her.  
  
"Who told you that?" The child shrugged. It looked as if she did know very well what he was talking about, but chose not to say a word. That was fine for now. Carter subconsciously picked up the clipboard again. He needed to find the family of the girl, but first, he needed to gain her trust. He decided that he needed to change the subject.  
  
"So how are you feeling?" he asked again.  
  
"My throat is kind of scratchy and dry," she told Carter. He picked up the pitcher of water on the table beside the bed and poured her a glass. He held the straw up to her lips and she drank a tiny sip of the water before stopping.  
  
"That better?" he asked, smiling at her.  
  
"Yes, thank you sir," she returned a faint smile to him. Carter jotted some things onto her chart, and noted that it was about time for her pain medication. He stood up and walked around to where her IV meds were stored.  
  
"Are you in pain?" Carter asked. The child nodded.  
  
"A little," she told him. He began to inject some morphine into her IV tube with a fine syringe. "What are you doing?"  
  
"I am just giving you a little bit of medicine so that you don't feel pain. It will make you a little bit sleepy in a moment, and when you wake up, you will probably be in a different room, okay?" he spoke to her in as gentle a voice as he could. He hadn't had a lot of experience managing kids before; that was generally Luka's department. Carter stepped back after all of the medicine was in the IV. It would take effect soon. He crossed the room, and threw out the syringe and the empty medicine canister. He heard a little voice call out softly behind him.  
  
"Will you come see me when I go to the other room? Will you still be my doctor?" she asked uncertainly. He crossed the room to stand at her bedside.  
  
"If you want me to. My name is Dr. Carter," he told her this in a gentle voice. Her eyelids were starting to droop. The painkillers were setting in. He needed to ask her. The sooner the better. "What is your name?" The little girl struggled to keep her eyes open now.  
  
"My name is Grace," she said weakly. With that, she fell into sleep. Carter pulled the blanket over her, and called one of the new nurses into the room.  
  
"Hey, Holly, could you take my Jane Doe up to recovery, please? We are gonna need the beds for emergencies." A younger, bespectacled nurse with dark brown hair and olive skin turned at the sound of her name.  
  
"Sure thing, Dr. Carter," she told him. She began to prep the girl's monitors for transfer as Carter left the room, chart still in hand. He rushed back into the room and thrust the chart into Holly's arms. He thanked her and left the room.  
  
"Hey Frank," Carter called as he approached the admissions desk. The desk clerk immediately looked up from the Auto World magazine that he was reading.  
  
"Yea, Carter, what's up?" Carter went up to the board and cleared his Jane Doe.  
  
"Do you know offhand where Kerry is?" he asked Frank. Frank shook his head.  
  
"I think that she might be in a meeting now," he told Carter. Carter jerked his head in frustration. Seeing Holly trying to wheel the gurney on which the girl, Grace, lay asleep, Carter called to Frank to let Kerry know he was looking for her, and ran down the hallway after Holly. Coming up beside the gurney, he took hold of a rail on it and helped Holly push her inside of an elevator. Holly pushed the button to go to the fifth floor, and the elevator jerked, starting the motion upward. Carer looked at the nurse.  
  
"Anything changed with her?" he asked. She shook her head.  
  
"She's still out of it. No changes at all, really. Here we are," she announced as they stepped out of the elevator with the bed rolling between them. "We want 512. It's down the hall this way.  
  
"Alright then," he said as he helped to roll the bed down the hall. Carter enjoyed visiting the other levels of the hospital; they were not nearly as busy as the Emergency Room. This floor, the Pediatrics floor, was one that he generally didn't visit often. Carter was usually somehwat awkward with kids. He liked them, but they often didn't like him. That was why he had always let the nurses or doctors like Doug Ross, and Luka and Kerry handle them. Thinking of it, his med student Lucy had been great with kids, even taking her time to mentor that kid, Seth. Actually, Lucy had just been great with people in general.  
  
"Okay, here we are. Could you help me with the door, Carter?" Holly asked him. He nodded and held the door open as the nurse wheeled the small girl into the room. It was a pleasant-looking room, with the walls decorated in ocean-themed wallpaper. It was a double room, with a curtain that could divide it. This room, however, was empty except for the young girl that they wheeled into the room. Holly began to hook up her monitors.  
  
"Thanks, Holly," Carter said as he turned to go.  
  
"Do you want me to keep an eye on her for you, Carter?" Holly asked.  
  
"That would be great, thanks," he gave her a small smile, which she returned.  
  
"I'll send someone for you if anything changes," she said as he was leaving. He held up a hand in thanks and left the room, walking back down the hallway to the elevator. Back in the ER, Carter set out to the clipboard rack. Nothing was there for him, so he ended up back in the lounge, where he met Luka.  
  
"Hey Carter," Luka greeted him between bites of his sandwich. Carter grabbed another cup of coffee and sat down near him.  
  
"Hey Kovac, how are those burn patients doing?" Luka swallowed a mouthful of sandwich and spoke.  
  
"They are doing just fine. The baby is gonna pull through, thanks to you. That was quick thinking, nice call." Carter took a sip of the coffee.  
  
"Thanks," he told Luka, taking another sip of coffee. Kerry walked into the lounge.  
  
"Hey, Carter, anything new on your Jane Doe?" She asked him before he could tell her anything. He sat at the table as she grabbed something out of the refrigerator.  
  
"Yeah, she has a name," he said.  
  
"Well, duh, Carter. Everyone has a name. Do you know what it is?" Carter ignored her tone of voice.  
  
"Yeah, she says her name is Grace. I don't have a last name or anything for her yet, and she didn't tell me where she was from or anything."  
  
"Got an age?"  
  
"She's 5 years old." Kerry looked back at him.  
  
"Wow, and she's all alone. Wonder how long it's gonna be before her parents come for her."  
  
"I think that she ran away from home."  
  
"What makes you think that?" Kerry asked him, surprised.  
  
"Well, there was stuff in her backpack, like a toothbrush, extra clothes, food, and a box of photos of her family. I never saw the box, but Abby did, and we both think it looks like she ran away," Kerry groaned and rubbed her forehead.  
  
"Okay, okay, we need to call the police. Will you do that?" she asked Carter. He nodded.  
  
"Sure. What do you want me to tell them?"  
  
"Tell them that her name is Grace K, until we can get her to tell us the last name. Tell them that she is probably a runaway, and put out an all points bulletin for girls of that description in Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri, and Kentucky," Kerry told him quickly. Carter nodded again.  
  
"So that little blond girl that they brought in, her parents, no one, has come for her yet?" Luka asked. Kerry and Carter whipped around. They had forgotten that he was there altogether.  
  
"No, we have to look for the family. Chances are, they don't even know that she's here," Carter told Luka. Kerry finished heating up a Tupperware full of pasta and sat down at the table. Carter dumped out his coffee cup and rinsed it before turning to leave the lounge. He said goodbye to Kerry and Luka as he left, and, approaching the admissions desk, called out.  
  
"Hey Frank, would you get the Chicago PD on the phone for me, please?"  
  
****************************************8  
  
So that's all for now!!! I will be posting chapter 6 shortly.  
  
Thanks to all of my reviewers!  
  
Twin*muse, Jane McCartney, Chase Liquor, MeliOgirl, tv-crazy, Thanks so much for reading, especially to Meliogirl and tv-crazy for being loyal readers (  
  
And for CARTERJOHN and Dark Sparrow, thanks for reading, even if this isn't your favorite ER coupling.  
  
Signing off for now,  
  
Snapdragon 


	6. Revelation

DISCLAIMER: If you recognize it, then I don't own it. That's all, cut and dried.  
  
So now, for the readers, we are on to chapter 6!!! This is where the plot starts to thicken... Read and enjoy, and don't forget to send your reviews later!  
  
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SAVING GRACE—CHAPTER 6  
  
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After filing the report with the police, Carter took a few more patients, none of whom turned out to be too dramatic. Before long, it was 10:00 pm, and Carter would get off of the shift at midnight. The ER had quieted down now, and Carter was crossing a patient off of the nearly-empty board when Holly came running down the hall, nearly overturning an empty gurney in the process.  
  
She stopped in front of him and put her hands on her knees to try to catch her breath.  
  
"Carter," she panted, gasping for air. "We need you up in peds." Carter frowned.  
  
"Why, what's wrong?" Holly regained her breath, and stood up straight.  
  
"It's that girl, your Jane Doe. She's woken up and she wants to see you. She is scared to death of everyone else," she told him. Carter understood. It had taken him a while to gain the girl's trust, and he could imagine what the pediatrics nurses were going through. Carter led the way to the elevator, Holly trotting along at his heels. They got into the elevator, and Carter jammed his finger on the 5 button.  
  
"Is she throwing a fit or something?" he asked Holly. She shook her head.  
  
"No, but she looks scared enough. She just sort of looked at me when she woke up and asked if you were around. That's all," she told him.  
  
"That's all? That's what you came running to tell me?" Holly shrugged as the doors opened and they got off of the elevator.  
  
"Well, you said you wanted me to tell you if she woke up again." They approached the room and went in.  
  
The instant that she saw Carter, the little girl's face lit up. Carter smiled back at her, while Holly hovered in the background, filling in charts and stuff. The child was lying in her bed, hair tossed and over her pillow. Her hospital gown still on, IV's still in, but her face had a somewhat healthier glow to it.  
  
"Hi, Grace," Carter said. She smiled politely at him.  
  
"Good evening, Dr. Carter," she said as she tried to sit up. Carter stopped her.  
  
"Hold on there, don't try sitting up too fast, or you'll pop your stitches like you almost did earlier," he said as he raised the back of the bed a little, so she was almost sitting up, back against the bed.  
  
"Thank you," she said.  
  
"You're welcome. So how are you feeling?" Carter asked as he pulled out his stethoscope and began to check her heart rate.  
  
"I am feeling better than earlier, but my tummy still hurts a little if I move funny," she told Carter. Holly wrote these things down on the clipboard she was holding. Carter nodded.  
  
"Anything else? Is your head hurting?"  
  
"Not really."  
  
"How about your leg?" Grace shook her head.  
  
"No, it doesn't hurt at all. The skin on my back hurts a little bit, though."  
  
"Yes, that's because of the road burn. That will heal on its own in a couple of days." Grace nodded.  
  
"Okay," she said. Carter listened to her breathing.  
  
"I need you to take a deep breath for me," he told her. She nodded, and did so. Her breathing sounds were good, and heart rate was within the normal range. Good signs of a fast recovery. He sat back and put the stethoscope back around his neck.  
  
"You, my friend, are going to be just fine. Your body is healing itself very fast. You will be out of here in no time at all." Grace smiled.  
  
"What about my leg?" she asked, indicating the cast on her lower leg. Carter let out a breath.  
  
"That will take a little longer to heal. Maybe up to six weeks." Grace quickly drew in a breath and held it apprehensively. She bit her lower lip.  
  
"Will I have to stay here in the hospital for six more weeks?" she asked, sounding both nervous and frightened. Carter laughed.  
  
"Of course not, honey," she let out the breath, relieved.  
  
"I'm glad. I don't like hospitals." Carter smiled at her as he finished recording her vitals.  
  
"Well, missy, these charts look great for everything that you've been through. Is there anything that you would like?" Grace sat, thinking for a moment. She glanced at the clock, then at Carter.  
  
"Um, is it too late to get something to eat?" she asked rather nervously. Carter grinned.  
  
"Of course not," he told her, then turned to Holly. "Holly, would you please find a patient meal for Grace?" Holly smiled at Carter, then at Grace.  
  
"I would be happy to go and find this young lady something to eat," she said as she turned and left the room.  
  
"Thank you, Dr. Carter. Thank you for taking care of me," Grace said to Carter.  
  
"You are welcome, that's my job," he replied. They sat in silence for a moment, until Grace spoke again quite suddenly, with a note of mild panic in her voice.  
  
"Um, Dr. Carter, did they find my backpack after I got hit?" She seemed slightly panicked. Carter quickly spoke.  
  
"Yes, they did. Was it a purple one?" Grace nodded. "It is here, safe and sound. Don't worry," he reassured her gently. A look of relief swept over her face.  
  
"Good," she said. Carter nodded.  
  
"Yes," he said. "You are a very lucky young lady." Grace played with a strand of her blond hair, avoiding Carter's eyes.  
  
"That is what everybody keeps on telling me." She looked up out the window. "I don't know."  
  
"But you're here, you're alive." she shook her head.  
  
"That's the problem. I'm here. I shouldn't have come at all." She continued to look out the window. Carter didn't know what to do, so it was rather lucky when Holly came knocking on the door with a patient dinner in her hand. She pushed through the door.  
  
"Here we go, Grace," Holly said, smiling. "We have macaroni and cheese, green beans, apple juice and, for desert, some lovely hospital jell-o." She opened up a table from the gurney and set the tray down onto it. Grace looked back at her.  
  
"Thank you very much," she said politely, still avoiding Carter's eyes. It was as if she didn't want to tell him something, as if she had said something that she knew she shouldn't have said.  
  
"I've got to go tend to another patient. I'll be back to see you later," she told the child. Grace looked at her and smiled.  
  
"Okay," she said as Holly left the room again. She picked up the packet, wrapped in plastic, containing a fork, knife, and napkin. Opening it, she spread the napkin neatly on her lap and picked up the fork. She looked back at Carter.  
  
"I'm sorry," she said, lowering her head again and forking a macaroni noodle. Carter looked at her. He chose to ignore her apology.  
  
"You have very good manners," he told her. With the compliment, things seemed forgiven. She looked at him and beamed. She set the fork down.  
  
"Thank you, Dr. Carter. My grandma taught me manners, and I learn them at my school, too." Carter smiled. He really wanted to know about her, so that he could help to find her family. He needed to choose his questions carefully.  
  
"What school is that?" he asked her. Not even flinching, she took up her fork again.  
  
"I go to the South Suburban Montessori School. It's great. All of my teachers are nice." she said, eating a small bit of macaroni. Carter nodded. He had never heard of this school before. He wondered where it was.  
  
"Is the school far from your house?" he asked. Grace shook her head.  
  
"No, it is only about 15 minutes away. I live in Richfield, and the school is in Brecksville."  
  
"I've never heard of those places before," Carter told her honestly. She speared two more macaroni noodles with her fork.  
  
"It's far away from here," Grace said nonchalantly. "I'm not surprised that you don't know where it is."  
  
"So you don't live in Illinois?" Carter asked the child. Fork still in hand, she looked up at him.  
  
"No, silly, Richfield isn't in Illinois. It's in Ohio." Carter stopped. Ohio? This girl had crossed two state lines to come to Chicago? He tried to calm his shock.  
  
"Ohio, wow. It must have taken you a long time to come here," He commented as Grace took a sip of her juice. She shrugged.  
  
"Not really," she said nonchalantly. "It only took two days." Carter felt his mouth drop. This girl was lucky that she survived! Where had she slept? It was lucky that she had avoided criminals at all! What Carter really wanted to know, though, was why on God's green earth a 5-year-old child would leave Ohio to travel hundreds of miles to a place that she didn't even know.  
  
"Grace, why did leave your family in Ohio?" The little girl was silent for a moment. She looked up at Carter. He noticed, for the first time, that she had blue eyes.  
  
"The people that I left were not my family. I don't have a family, only a father. I have lived with foster parents nearly the whole summer," she said rather quickly. She picked at the green beans on her dinner tray.  
  
"What about your grandmother?" Carter asked her, remembering that the girl had mentioned a grandmother.  
  
"She's dead," Grace said sadly. Carter nodded slowly.  
  
"I'm sorry. So your grandmother raised you? What about your mother and father?"  
  
"Yes, my grandmother took care of me. I lived with her after--." she stopped short at this. Carter was stunned. The child was only 5 years old, and she had already been through so much.  
  
"Oh," was all that Carter could manage to say. Grace took another bite of macaroni.  
  
"Yes. Grandma died a couple of months ago. She was in a bad car accident. The driver of the car that hit her was drunk. After that, the child services place put me in a foster family. I liked them, but I wanted my own family. I've never met my father, but I'm going to find him. He used to live in Chicago. My grandmother told me." She said all of this with the air of one who was uncomfortable telling the information to a stranger. Carter was writing these things down in the margins of Grace's chart.  
  
"Maybe we can help you find your father," Carter suggested. Immediately, the girl's face lit up. She put down her fork, looking very excited.  
  
"You could do that? You would?" Grace's happiness was contagious, and Carter couldn't help but smile.  
  
"Sure I would. What is your father's name?" Carter asked her, pen and paper ready. As suddenly as her face had brightened, it fell at the mention of a name. She turned back to her pudding.  
  
"I don't know," she said miserably, playing with her food. "Grandma knew it. She never told me, though." Carter sighed. He really didn't want to disappoint this girl. He tried to think of something else to do.  
  
"What about your mother? She must know your dad's name," Carter suggested, trying to be helpful. Rather than making Grace perk up, however, it seemed to make her more upset. She put her fork down, and lay her hands in her lap, staring at them. "What's wrong?" Carter asked.  
  
"My mother is dead," she said, her voice quivering. She kept her head down. Carter didn't know what to do. He scooted his chair nearer to her, and rubbed her back in a comforting manner. He waited a moment to say anything.  
  
"I'm sorry," he said. She looked up.  
  
"It's okay. She died when I was a baby," she told him. He nodded.  
  
"Oh," Carter said sympathetically. Grace nodded a little.  
  
"I remember her though, a little bit," she said this as if she wanted to get it off of her chest, to tell someone what she was feeling. Carter nodded, encouraging her to speak.  
  
"What was she like?" Grace smiled at the memory, her clear eyes clouding over a little bit.  
  
"Well," she started, "She was really nice, and kind, and she loved people. She loved me a lot. Grandma told me that I was the best thing in her life. I was her baby, and she loved me. She was like an angel. She was beautiful like one, too. She had blonde hair, and blue eyes, like me," she finished, looking at Carter.  
  
"She sounds like she was a great person," Carter said. Grace nodded sadly. She looked like she was thinking about something. She snapped out of her thoughts, and she smiled.  
  
"Could I have my backpack, please? There's a picture of her in there, if you want to see it." Carter nodded.  
  
"Sure you can. Let me grab it for you..." Carter scooted his chair down near the wall and grabbed the child's belongings bag. He pulled out the familiar purple backpack and handed it to her. She smiled as he handed her the bag. She pushed the food tray aside as she rummaged through the bag. She pulled out the box and undid the rubber bands, shuffling through the papers and photos in the box. Smiling, she pulled out a photo.  
  
"Here it is. Be careful. That's the only one I've got of her," Grace said, handing him the photo. He took it carefully from her and looked at it.  
  
His expression changed to shock.  
  
It was Lucy.  
  
*********************************  
  
All for chapter 6! Chapter seven will be up shortly, hopefully by the end of next week. If you want to encourage me to write faster, review, or e- mail me.  
  
Ta-ta for now!  
  
Snapdragon ( 


	7. Aftershock

DISCLAIMER: Anything that you recognize, I don't own. I do, however, own Grace...my very own OC!!! Yeah...anyways...  
  
Okay, so, here's chapter 7! It's kinda short, but bear with me.  
  
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SAVING GRACE- CHAPTER SEVEN  
  
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Speechless, Carter looked up from the photo to the smiling child in the hospital bed. For the first time, he saw her eyes. Really saw them. They were deep, clear blue eyes, with just a hint of grey. But this time, he wasn't looking into a little girl's eyes.  
  
He was looking into Lucy's eyes.  
  
Carter gaped, his mouth falling open. He had to get out. Without thinking, he pushed the photo back into the child's hands, without looking into her eyes. He stood up so quickly that his chair was nearly overturned.  
  
Carter turned and nearly ran out of the room.  
  
**********************  
  
"Wait--" Grace called after him sadly as he fled the room, pushing the door open so fast that it crashed into the wall when it swung open. Carter walked, walked as quickly as he could. He was so shocked, that he was unable to think at all. He was aware of his own footsteps pattering down the nearly empty hall of the Pediatric floor of Cook County Hospital.  
  
Carter's walk grew into a run, and he ran until he reached the elevator. he jammed the button with his fist several times, willing it to come faster so that he could have some time to think. He put his hand on the wall to steady himself. He lay his forehead on the cool wall and tried to gather his thoughts. The problem was, though, that up until that point he hadn't been able to think. His heart raced.  
  
So this child was Lucy's little girl. But when had Lucy had a child? If she was 5 years old, that would mean that she had been pregnant during her time at County. How did she manage to keep that hidden? What was going to happen to the child now? He had to call the police.  
  
He needed to find Kerry. Kerry was off, though, and would be on again at seven the next morning. Carter wasn't sure that he could wait that long to talk to her.  
  
A bell dinged as the silver-gray doors of the elevator slid open. Carter took his hand off of the wall and got onto the elevator, jamming on the button that would take him back down to the ER. Carter leaned back on the wall of the elevator and shut his eyes.  
  
He needed to talk to someone, namely Kerry. He didn't know what to do. He knew that he should probably call the Chicago PD and report the girl's identity. Jane Doe was no longer a Jane Doe: she was now Grace Knight.  
  
At least, Carter suspected that that was the child's last name. It would figure if Lucy truly was her mother. He shook himself. Of course Lucy was her mother. Just looking at her eyes, into her eyes, that was proof enough for him. Probably enough proof, actually, for anyone who really remembered Lucy.  
  
The elevator stopped as it reached ground level. The doors opened and Carter stepped out as a couple of doctors, probably from surgery, got onto the elevator, reviewing a patient's case. Carter hardly glanced at them as he swept past. It was now midnight. He headed for the lounge. Carter had to get out of County for a while. He was on again at nine the next morning anyway,, and he needed time to gather his thoughts.  
  
Carter found his way past the chaos of the emergency room into the staff lounge. To his relief,, it was unoccupied. Carter hung his lab coat on the hook in his locker, and changed into his normal shoes. Grabbing his apartment keys off of the shelf, he slammed the metal door shut and left the lounge.  
  
Clocking out at the admit desk, he turned to leave. The double doors slid open, and Abby came striding in, looking less than thrilled about being back for another night shift. She greeted him, and he tried to smile nonchalantly.  
  
"Hey Abby. You back on?" She rolled her eyes.  
  
"No, I just love this place so much that I would come here at midnight on a day that I had off. Of course I'm on again," she said to Carter. He forced a small smile, mind not really on it.  
  
"Such sarcasm, Abby, it is dripping and I am getting soaked." She smiled at him.  
  
"Rough night?" she asked. Carter shrugged.  
  
"Not too bad, just...shocking." Abby shot him a questioning look.  
  
"How so?" Carter didn't want to answer, so he chose to ignore her. He avoided her eyes and looked around. He saw Elizabeth Corday at that moment in the ambulance bay. She would be a good person to tell, as she understood a little of what the news would truly mean. Abby tapped her foot, playfully annoyed.  
  
"Well, I'm gonna go...I'm a little late for my shift. See you later, Carter," she called back as she turned to leave.  
  
"Sure thing," Carter answered her. He rushed out the double doors and into the ambulance bay. He saw Corday coming up, and she caught sight of him and smiled. He tried to smile back, and she sensed something was wrong. She approached him, arms crossed over her chest.  
  
"Hey, rough night?" Carter shrugged, responding to the question again.  
  
"Not really that rough," Carter told her. She uncrossed her arms and looked at him, concerned.  
  
"Well, you look shaken by something. What is it?" She sounded concerned, and Carter couldn't help but answer her.  
  
"Well," he began, trying to find the right way to start the conversation. "It's about my Jane Doe, who really isn't a Jane Doe anymore."  
  
"What's up with her?" Carter spotted a nearby bench and gestured toward it. They sat down, and he talked to her.  
  
"She's a runaway, and an orphan," he sighed. "She ran away from her foster parents to look for her father, who worked somewhere in this city around 5 years ago."  
  
"Oh, that's awful. The poor thing," Elizabeth said sympathetically. "How's she doing?"  
  
"She's recovering very well, up in the normal Peds recovery area. She was awake earlier, was scared to death when she first got here, but we calmed her down. She is doing just fine though." He answered. There was a pause, a moment of silence. Elizabeth asked the question, then, that Carter had been dreading.  
  
"What's her name?" Carter looked at her, trying to find the words to explain. He took a short breath.  
  
"Grace Knight," he said. Elizabeth's face froze at these words. She turned and looked straight at Carter, searching his face for clues, indications that he was joking. He wasn't. Her mouth fell open. It couldn't be... She closed her mouth and turned away from Carter.  
  
"Knight?" Carter nodded. Elizabeth recovered for a moment from the shock. "Yes, well, isn't Knight a pretty common last name in this country?" Carter exhaled slowly. Elizabeth whipped back around and stared at him.  
  
"What?" she asked. "Just because the child has the same last name doesn't mean she's related!" At this remark, Carter let out a small laugh under his breath. "What?" she asked again.  
  
"Um," Carter began. Elizabeth's gaze intensified. Her eyes grew wide.  
  
"No, you're not telling me that--" she began. He cut her off.  
  
"She showed me a photo of Lucy," Carter said quietly, looking straight into Elizabeth's eyes. Elizabeth bit her lip.  
  
"Are you sure?" Carter nodded.  
  
"I could not see a picture of Lucy and not recognize it," he told her. She bent forward and put her elbows on her knees, holding her head in her hands. She let out a quick breath.  
  
"Oh my God," she said under her breath. She sat there like that for a moment. Carter didn't know what to do, so he made a move to stand up. "Wait," she said quietly.  
  
"Yeah?" Elizabeth sat up again, then stood to meet him.  
  
"I want to see her," she said. Carter slowly nodded his head.  
  
"I'm on my way out, but I'll be back on at nine. Will you still be here?" he asked. She nodded.  
  
"I'm on until noon," she glanced at her watch. It was after midnight, but only by a few minutes. She looked back up at him, tugging a stray lock of her red hair.  
  
"Alright," she said, resolved. Carter checked his own watch.  
  
"I'll meet you in the lounge or something before my shift. I'll come early," he told her. She gave a small smile.  
  
"I'd better get going. It's past time for my shift," she told him. She turned to leave.  
  
"Hey, Dr. Corday," he called. She turned and looked at him with eyebrows raised. "Um, could you please not tell Kerry? I wanted to tell her myself." Elizabeth, nodding, agreed. He thanked her, and they parted and went their separate ways.  
  
Carter walked to pick up the El. A cool breeze was blowing; winter was coming. Carter began to climb the stairs to the station platform. Hand touching the metal rail, a thought hit him.  
  
Turning, he leapt down five steps to reach ground level and ran across the street, a minivan nearly missing him. He whipped around the corner, into the ambulance bay. The sliding doors opened and he went inside, looking around. Frank saw him from the desk.  
  
"Carter, didn't you just leave?" He called to him. Carter looked over at him.  
  
"Yeah, yeah...hey Frank, have you seen Abby anywhere around?"  
  
"Yeah, exam 2 with a possible wrist fracture," Frank said as Carter hurried away. He nearly ran down to Exam 2, and burst into the door, scaring both Abby and her patient. She threw him a look that clearly said "what the hell are you doing?" He regained as much of his professional composure as he could at the moment.  
  
"Nurse Lockhart, could I see you outside for just a moment?" Abby looked at him, her brow slightly furrowed in mild confusion. She stood up and tuned to her patient: a middle-aged lanky man with slightly thinning brown hair.  
  
"Mr. Tamany, I'm sorry. I'll be right with you," she told him. He started to rise from the bed where he sat.  
  
"But--" he started. Abby cut him off and waved her hand for him to sit down.  
  
"I'll just be a minute." Carter held the door open for her as she walked out of the room. He let the door swing shut. He cornered her in the hallway against a medical supply rack.  
  
"Geez, where's the fire, Carter? I was with a patient," Abby said, looking both annoyed and confused. Carter chose to ignore this coment.  
  
"Why didn't you tell me?" He asked her seriously, a tone in his voice demnding an answer. Abby frowned, very confused.  
  
"What are you talking about?"  
  
"My patient, my Jane Doe. You went through her backpack--"  
  
"You did too!" Abby interrupted him. He held up his index finger, for her to shut up and let him finish. She did so.  
  
"You went through her photos. The ones of her family," he accused. Abby still didn't get it. She didn't seem to have a clue what he was talking about.  
  
"Yeah, so? You were right there with me, so I wasn't doing anything illegal, was I?"  
  
"Abby, do you remember Lucy?" Abby gave a small, confused laugh.  
  
"Of course, how could I forget Lucy? She was--"  
  
"Do you remember the pictures? The ones that you saw? Lucy's photo is in that box with the rest of them!" he said to her. She was rendered speechless. She gaped at Carter for a moment.  
  
"You mean, this girl knew Lucy? Was related to her?" Carter nodded. "Unbelievable."  
  
"Believe it. The girl says her name is Grace Knight. She told me earlier that Lucy was her mother," Carter told her. Abby looked shocked.  
  
"Wow," was the only word that she could manage. "Wow." There was an awkward pause. Then Abby spoke again.  
  
"Carter, go home. You're off. Back on again in like seven hours. Get some sleep," she told him. Before he could stop her, she slipped past him and into the exam room where a patient was waiting for her.  
  
All that Carter could do was stare at the exam room door after her.  
  
*************************************8  
  
That's all for chapter 7! Chapter eight coming shortly...  
  
How does Carter react? What will Elizabeth do? Will Carter tell Kerry about this?  
  
Find out in the next installment of Saving Grace ;)  
  
Hehe...just thought I'd try out the teasers (  
  
Until next time,  
  
Snapdragon 


	8. Guilt

DISCLAIMER: Click the back button on your browser if you want to read it. Otherwise, continue on to Chapter 8!  
  
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SAVING GRACE- CHAPTER 8  
  
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It was 8:15 am the next morning, and Carter was sitting on the worn-out sofa in the lounge, drinking a cup of coffee from one of the old, slightly- chipped mugs that he had found in the cupboard above the coffee pot. Carter hadn't been able to sleep well that night. His mind kept turning over the strange revelations that he'd found the previous day. There was so much that he needed to know about Grace Knight.  
  
He had even made a list of things to do. He'd been in so much shock the night before that he'd forgotten to call the police and tell them the information that he'd found out. He resolved to do it later today, once he told Kerry the news.  
  
Carter snorted suddenly. This was going to be the talk of the ER for a while. The ER nurses were definitely the biggest group of gossips that he'd ever known.  
  
As he drank the dregs of his bland cup of coffee, Elizabeth came into the lounge, dressed in the usual blue scrubs, a half-tied surgical mask around her neck. Her hair was tied back, and she looked rather tired. She smiled when she saw him.  
  
"Carter," she said, "I didn't think that you'd be here this early." He shrugged.  
  
"Where else would I be?"  
  
"Oh, I don't know, sleeping, at home, anything is better than here." she said, smiling. "Just a moment, I'm going to grab a quick cup of coffee and then we can go, okay?"  
  
"Okay," Carter nodded. "Sounds good." Elizabeth gave him a small smile and turned to pour a cup of coffee. Carter stood and walked to the sink, rinsing and drying his own cup. As he replaced it in the cupboard, he saw Elizabeth standing nearby, downing her coffee as fast as she could. Carter laughed at her.  
  
"Hey, hey, you're gonna burn yourself!" he laughed. She brought the cup down from her lips and gasped shortly for air.  
  
"Well," she told him, taking another sip, "I don't mind. And I am eager to see this patient." With that, she took the cup and lifted it to her lips again, chugging the rest quickly. Carter shook his head disapprovingly, waiting for her to finish. She finished the cup of coffee and put it into the sink, not bothering to wash it. She whipped past Carter, pushing open the door to the lounge.  
  
"You coming?" she asked Carter.  
  
"Yep," he said, following her out the door and to the elevator. They boarded the elevator, and Elizabeth hit the 5th floor button, leaning against the wall of the elevator. She sighed, blowing a loose curl out of her face. Carter looked over at her as the elevator stopped on the fifth floor.  
  
"Which way?" Elizabeth asked him. Carter pointed down a hallway.  
  
"There," he said, leading the way to the girl's room. When they had arrived at the door to room 512, Carter heard Elizabeth take a breath in. He turned to her.  
  
"What?" she asked defensively.  
  
"You sure you want to do this?" She nodded.  
  
"Of course." Carter opened the door and held it open for Elizabeth. She stepped into the room with a mood of uncertainty. Carter let the door close, stepping into the room behind her.  
  
The room was filled with sunlight, the blinds having not been drawn the night before. Grace was sound asleep in her bed, hair tousled under her head. Her blanket had slipped down as she slept, and her left arm was thrown out, hand over the side of the bed. Elizabeth approached her cautiously from the left side. Carter hovered near the foot of the bed. He heard Elizabeth draw in a sharp breath.  
  
"Holy Lord," she said quetly, amazed. "This girl's a spitting image of Lucy." She moved closer to the bedside. Gently, she moved her hand to the child's head and smoothed her hair. Grace stirred, but did not wake. Carter picked up the clipboard on the counter in the room and saw that Grace's stats had been checked at 8:00 by the night nurse, and she was improving well.  
  
He looked up and really looked at the child's face. Elizabeth was right: she was a spitting image of her mother. Besides the hair, she had Lucy's nose, her chin, her ears. But the thing that had taken Carter aback earlier were her eyes. The eyes were exactly the same.  
  
"Oh," Elizabeth said rather suddenly, causing Carter to put the clipboard down and stare at her.  
  
"What?" he asked her. Elizabeth bent down behind the bed and came up again with a toy, the stuffed octopus that Carter had found going through the girl's backpack the day before.  
  
"She seems to have dropped her stuffed animal while she was sleeping," Elizabeth said quietly. She examined the creature. "Looks like an octopus," she observed, turning it over. Something caught her eye, and she stood staring at it. Carter moved to the side of the bed, near Elizabeth.  
  
"What is it?" he asked her. She just shook her head, looking like she was holding back tears again.  
  
She said nothing, but placed the octopus onto the chair beside the child's bed. She reached down and pulled the blankets up to Grace's collarbone, placing the stuffed toy back into the girl's arms.  
  
"I am so sorry, Grace," Elizabeth said, her voice so soft a whisper that Carter could barely hear it himself. Elizabeth touched her head again, smoothing her blond hair. She turned to go, walking so briskly that Carter thought about turning after her. Thinking about it, staring at the slightly open door after her, she probably wanted to be left alone. He didn't follow her.  
  
Carter knew she was upset. She probably felt horribly, still feeling responsible for Lucy's death. He frowned, and reached for the stuffed octopus. He examined it himself, turning it over in his hands. Something strange caught his eye.  
  
On the underside of the octopus, there was a small tag, the kind that would hold cleaning instructions. This tag was small, maybe one inch and a half by one inch, and looked as if it had been bleached. On it, in a fine laundry-marking pen, there were words. Tiny but neatly-written, Carter recognized it as the handwriting that Lucy used to use, not the kind she used on patient charts, but what she used when she wrote out greeting cards, her neat handwriting. He read the words written there.  
  
"My dearest daughter," Lucy had said, "I am here though I am gone. I  
love you with all of my heart."  
  
Carter reread the tag several times. Lucy had written those words, obviously, before her death. It was still ironic, though, that a simple message could bring him comfort as well.  
  
Carter tucked the tag neatly under the octopus, and nestled the creature under the blanket next to Grace, who still slept soundly. He lightly touched the child's hand, and turned away. He slipped quietly out the door and down the sparsely populated hallway of the pedes floor of the hospital.  
  
Back in the ER, Carter headed for the lounge, since he wasn't officially on yet. He glanced at the clock in the Chairs of the ER as he passed. He still had another 15 minutes until he needed to work. Carter entered the lounge and discovered it was empty. He opened his locker and took off his coat, replacing it with his white lab coat. He sat down on a wooden bench near the locker, pulling off his shoes to replace them with his work sneakers. He had just tied one sneaker on when the door of the lounge opened and Kerry walked in.  
  
"Good morning, Carter," She greeted him.  
  
"Morning, Kerry," he replied, tying his right shoe.  
  
"I thought you weren't on until eight?"  
  
"I'm not. I just came in early to check on my Jane Doe." Kerry raised her eyebrows.  
  
"And?" she asked expectantly, sitting down at the scrubbed wooden table.  
  
"I've got a name," he said. Kerry sighed, relieved.  
  
"Good. We'll finally be able to get that girl home to her family." She took a small notebook and a pen from the pocket of her lab coat and set them down, ready to write. "So what's the name?"  
  
"Grace Knight," Carter told her. She began to write, then stopped. She looked up at Carter, a strange, uncertain expression coming over her face. "Could you spell that, please?"  
  
"K-n-i-g-h-t" he spelled out quickly. Kerry put down her pen suddenly on the table and folded her arms down.  
  
"This is a ridiculous question, but is this girl somehow related to--?" Carter nodded. Kerry's mouth parted in disbelief. She tried to regain her composure.  
  
"How is they related?" Carter moistened his lips.  
  
"Grace is her daughter," he said carefully. There was a pregnant pause. Kerry's mouth fell open again. She shook her head in disbelief.  
  
"Oh, God," she said, massaging her forehead with her hand. "This is not happening," she said, more to herself than to Carter. "Why did she come here?"  
  
"Because she is looking for her father."  
  
"What about her grandmother?"  
  
"Died in a car crash a couple of months ago. As far as Ohio Child Services goes, she's an orphan," Carter told her. Kerry looked at the wall.  
  
"Who's her father?"  
  
"She doesn't know. She only said that he used to work in Chicago." Kerry massaged her temple, groaning softly.  
  
"Okay, well, that doesn't rule anything out," she said, turning back to Carter, "Okay, here's what I want you to do--no, I'll do it."  
  
"Call Ohio's Child Services?" Kerry nodded.  
  
"Yes, I'm going to call them and talk to the foster family, tell them we have Grace. I'm going to see about getting records on the birth father and then we'll take it from there, ok?" she asked. Carter agreed that that would be the best thing to do.  
  
"Will you let me know how it goes? What you find out?" Kerry nodded.  
  
"Of course, she is your patient," she replied. Carter nodded.  
  
"Thanks Kerry," he told her. She gave him a small, understanding smile.  
  
"You're welcome. I know how much this one means to you." With that, she turned and walked out of the lounge.  
  
Carter hadn't even had the time to gather his thoughts when Neela poked her head through the door. Carter stood abruptly.  
  
"Dr. Carter, there's a trauma coming in. They need you're help," she informed him quickly.  
  
"I'll be right there," he said as he gathered his stethoscope and rushed out the door, meeting Neela on the other side. "What is it?" he asked her, taking long strides out through the ER.  
  
"They have a multi-victim motor-vehicular accident coming. Two major and three minor patients." Carter pushed through the doors and made his way to the ambulance bay with Neela. He found Drs. Weaver and Corday already standing there, waiting. They were conversing quietly, and looked up when Carter and Neela came out.  
  
"Hey, Elizabeth, I thought that you got off?" She gave him a look that said quite clearly, 'I was.'  
  
"Yes, well, this looked like a bad trauma, so I thought I'd stay and assist if need be." A few nurses appeared in the ambulance bay as they spoke. Sure enough, though, within a minute Carter heard the inevitable sirens of the ambulance approaching. Soon, the first two ambulances had pulled up in the bay in a torrent of flashing lights and sirens. The doctors and nurses surrounded the ambulances.  
  
"Okay," Kerry was shouting. "Elizabeth and I have the first ambulance, and Carter and Neela are on the second one. You lot," she said, indicating the nurses, "go where you are needed. Divide yourselves up!" She shouted these instructions as she hobbled over to the first ambulance quickly, and the paramedics began unloading the patient.  
  
"Male, 36, possible broken ribs and internal bleeds, got tension pneumo on the way over here. BP's 85/60, pulse weak at 80..." the paramedic's voice drifted off as Carter turned his attention to the second ambulance that was unloading. Carter helped to unload the gurney.  
  
"What've we got?" he shouted to the paramedic as they wheeled in the gurney.  
  
"66-year-old male, possible head trauma and spinal cord injury. Smashed his head up pretty bad in the accident. Probable internal bleeds, resps shallow and quick. Unconscious," the paramedic told them all. They got into Trauma one, and chaos ensued.  
  
"Okay, I want a head CT, x-rays of the head and chest, CBC, type and cross, dip of urine, two liters of saline, five units of O-neg, and get the portable ultrasound for the abdomen," Carter told them all. "Neela, start a saline IV and put two units on the rapid infuser."  
  
"All right," she said, bustling about to do what he had asked. Carter moved around to the man's head.  
  
"Sir, what's your name?" he asked. The man's eyes opened slightly, out of focus.  
  
"Tom Bennington," the older man gasped.  
  
"Do you know where you are?" The man drifted, his eyes rolling back into his head. "Mr. Bennington!" Carter raised his voice. No response, He took out his penlight. "Pupils equal and reactive," he said.  
  
"Pulse Ox dropping to 82," Lydia said. Carter clenched his teeth.  
  
"Okay, someone get me a number seven ET tube," he said.  
  
"You're tubing him?"  
  
"His pulse ox is low, he's not breathing enough." Carter got the tube in his hand and put the man's head back a bit.  
  
"You need crichoid pressure?" Neela asked him.  
  
"Yeah," he said as Neela helped him steady the man's head. "Dammit! I can't get past the cords."  
  
"Do you need--"  
  
"No, never mind. I've got it." Carter said as he triumphantly pulled the tube applicator out of the man's throat. "Bag him," he said, and one of the nurses took over. The ultrasound matching was swishing.  
  
"Oh, man. Belly's full of blood...so is the chest. Looks like one of his ribs punctured his lung."  
  
"What else have we got?" Carter moved around the bed to check on the foley. To his dismay, the fluid inside was pink. "There's blood in the foley."  
  
"BP's' dropping."  
  
"Someone call surgery now! Lydia, hang another two units of O-neg on the rapid infuser, and get 350ccs of saline in there. We have to raise the guy's pressure."  
  
"CT's ready,"  
  
"Okay let's get him up there now."  
  
"He's not stable," Neela told him. Carter shook his head.  
  
"We need to get him up there, or we're gonna lose him." Pratt came into the trauma room, holding X-rays.  
  
"Hey, Carter, films are back on this guy. Doesn't look good," he said. Carter grabbed the films and snapped them up onto a board, flicking on the backlight. Just then he heard a high-pitched, rapid beeping on the EKG.  
  
"We're in V-fib," Neela called to him.  
  
"Charge the paddles to 300, get them ready. Neela, take over chest compressions,"  
  
"I can't bag and do compressions at the same time."  
  
"I've got it, doc," Pratt said, rushing over and taking over the ambu bag, freeing Neela to do chest compressions. Carter moved over and grabbed the paddles.  
  
"Clear!" he shouted. Everyone moved their hands off of the elderly man, and Carter put the paddles to his chest, giving a shock. They were still in V-fib. "Push an amp of epi, go again at 325." No luck with the defibrillator. "Again, give that epi a chance to circulate. Clear!" Another shock, but the patient didn't improve.  
  
"Asystole," Neela said as the EKG flatlined.  
  
"Push another amp of epi, let's go again at 360," Carter said as he got ready to set the paddles down again. "Clear!" he yelled for the third time. The shock came. The man was still asystole. Carter sighed. They were gonna lose this one. There was nothing that they could do. He set the paddles back on the cart. "Stop the compressions," he told Neela. Pratt kept bagging. The patient was still flatlining.  
  
"I think that's it," Neela said. Carter nodded.  
  
"Time of death, 8:33," he said. Turning to the nurses, he said, "Make sure that he gets cleaned up. Neela, call the morgue please." She nodded.  
  
"Of course," she said, leaving the room. Carter looked through the glass into the next trauma room. Elizabeth and Kerry had cracked the younger man's chest, and were working to save him. Sam, one of the ER nurses, looked up at him through the glass. She saw from the look in his eyes that he hadn't been able to save that one.  
  
"Need me in here for anything else?" Carter asked. Lydia shook her head, grabbing a death kit from a drawer in the room.  
  
"No, Carter, I have it from here. Go see if there's anything that you can do for the other man injured," she answered, opening the death kit. Carter pulled off his gloves and threw them into a garbage can, along with his smock, and left the trauma room.  
  
He checked around for something else to do. After finding that the minor victims from the accident were okay, he checked back in on the younger man from the car wreck. The moment he stepped into the trauma room, he knew things weren't going well.  
  
"Is there anything I can do here?" he asked. Kerry shook her head.  
  
"No, he's stabilized, but it's not looking good for him. Two of his broken ribs had punctured both his heart and right lung. We fixed the tears, but he's been deprived of oxygen for so long that he's in a coma," she explained.  
  
"Any chance of him waking up?" Carter asked.  
  
"It's too soon to say, but I don't think so," Kerry said as Carter rubbed his forehead. "How about the older man?"  
  
"Dead, he had massive internal injuries."  
  
"That bad?"  
  
"It looked like someone took an eggbeater to his organs. There was nothing that we could do for him," Carter told her. They were both silent for a moment. Kerry began to take off her gloves.  
  
"I'd better call the family. The police have gotten ID's on him and on the older one, so we can notify the family."  
  
"Family?" asked Carter, placing emphasis on the fact that she had used the singular. Kerry nodded.  
  
"They were father and son," she said. She looked at Carter. "Oh, and after that I'm going to call that number to call about your...patient," she said cautiously, throwing an apprehensive glance in Elizabeth's direction.  
  
"It's okay, Kerry. Dr. Corday knows," Carter told her. "I told her about her this morning." Elizabeth looked up at the mention of her name.  
  
"What?" she asked.  
  
"Nothing," Carter said. "Don't worry about it. Kerry left the trauma room, and Carter followed. They got to the admitting desk, and Kerry pulled out a clipboard, presumably containing information about the patient.  
  
"Why don't you go visit her?" Kerry suggested kindly to Carter. He was struck with puzzlement.  
  
"Who?"  
  
"Miss Knight," Kerry said.  
  
"But she's not in the ER anymore."  
  
"Go. Go look after her. It's pretty slow down here, I'm pretty sure that we can handle things down here." Carter hesitated.  
  
"Page me if anything comes in, please," he told her. She nodded.  
  
"Go!" He obeyed, walking down the hall to the elevator.  
  
Back at the doorway to room 512, Carter hesitated before going in. He saw through the glass window, of which the blinds were opened, that she was awake. Her bed was propped up slightly, and she appeared to be watching TV. He took a breath, and opened the door.  
  
"Good morning, Grace," he smiled at her. A smile spread across her face as she looked at him.  
  
"Hello, Dr. Carter," she said cheerfully. He tried not to think about how much she looked like Lucy.  
  
"You seem better this morning, how do you feel?"  
  
"I feel better, my tummy still hurts a little, and I had a headache. The daytime nurse gave me medicine through the IV tube for that, though," she said, turning back to the television for a moment. Carter moved to her beside and pulled up the stool to sit in.  
  
"What are you watching?" he asked her.  
  
"The Care Bears," she said. Carter smiled at her.  
  
"My cousins used to like them. Which one is your favorite?" he asked.  
  
"I like the rainbow one," she said. There was a pause, as Grace turned to the television. She looked at Carter. "They said that I could watch TV as much as I wanted to here," she said, somewhat melancholy.  
  
"Yes, you can. Do you like to watch TV?" Grace shook her head.  
  
"Not really. I like it a little, but Grandma never let me watch more than an hour a day. She said that it rots your brain." Carter chuckled. He had been told the same thing when he was young. He noticed suddenly that the octopus was still sitting at the girl's side.  
  
"That's a nice stuffed animal," he said, pretending he'd never seen it before. "What kind is it?" Grace ignored the television set and took up the animal in her arms.  
  
"It's an octopus," she said. She looked apprehensively from Carter to the octopus, and then back again. Finally, she handed the creature to Carter. He took it gingerly.  
  
"What's it's name?" he asked her.  
  
"Squirt is his name. I named him myself, when I was old enough to." Carter handed Squirt back to Grace, and she looked relieved to have him back. "Thank you."  
  
"You don't like other people holding Squirt?" Carter asked her. She shook her head. She looked into his eyes, and her own eyes almost caught Carter off-balance.  
  
"I don't want to lose him," Grace explained. "My mother gave him to me." Carter nodded. Grace looked like she was thinking hard about something again.  
  
"Oh," Carter said simply. She looked at him again. Her eyes seemed to be searching his carefully. She held the toy in her arms and drew breath.  
  
"You knew my mother, didn't you?" she asked him. Leave it to a child to be blunt and say exactly what is on her mind. Carter willed himself not to get emotional. He looked straight back at Grace, who was anticipating his answer.  
  
"Yes, I knew her," he told the child. Her eyes lit up. The Care Bears were forgotten, and she clutched Squirt in her arms.  
  
"Really? What was she like? How did you know her?" she asked, eyes shining. Carter sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. He did not want to talk about this now.  
  
"She worked at this hospital when she went to medical school," he said, keeping his answers as brief as possible. Her eyes grew wide.  
  
"So, you knew her when she died?" she asked, eager for answers. Carter nodded.  
  
"Yeah," he said softly. He stared out of the window at the buildings across the street. The sun was shining; it was a clear autumn day. "More than you know," he breathed, so quietly that he could barely hear himself say it. Grace followed his gaze out the window, then turned her head back to him.  
  
"Was she a good doctor?" She asked Carter. He closed his eyes for a moment before answering.  
  
"She was better than she thought," Carter answered briefly. He looked around, everywhere but at the little girl. He needed to change the subject. He got his answer. "Hey, the Care Bears are over. Do you want to watch something different?"  
  
"No," Grace said, looking slightly hurt and confused. "No more TV. I want to do something different. Hey!" She said, remembering something. Guess what?" she asked Carter.  
  
"What?" he asked. He was amused by how quickly Grace could change her emotions. She sounded excited about something.  
  
"I'm getting a roommate! She gets that bed, over there," she said, pointing over at the empty bed on other side of the room. "Holly told me. She said that the girl, I don't know her name yet, had to have an operation, so she's gonna be with me when she gets better."  
  
"Wow, a roommate," Carter said. "That sounds like fun," he told her. She nodded excitedly.  
  
"Yeah, so I'll have someone to talk to instead of watching TV all day," she wrinkled her nose at that prospect, glad to have a roommate. Carter nodded, not bothering to mention to the child that the other girl would probably be too sleepy to be good company. "Dr. Carter, do you want to play a game with me?" Grace asked him.  
  
"What game?" he asked. Grace shrugged.  
  
"Well, we could play I Spy," she suggested. Carter smiled.  
  
"Okay, that sounds like fun," he said. Personally, though, he hated the game: he'd never been good at it as a kid. "You can go first."  
  
"Okay," she said excitedly, looking around the room, thinking about what she would choose. "I spy with my little eyes, something black," she clued. Carter looked around the room.  
  
"The TV?" he guessed. Grace shook her head, smiling secretively. Carter glanced around, searching for something else. "The...um...the garbage can?"  
  
"No, that's silver," Grace said, giggling. Her eyes flicked to Carter's chest. He got the hint.  
  
"My stethoscope?" Carter guessed. Grace nodded.  
  
"Yes, that's it. See? You aren't bad at this," she said, smiling. "Now it's your turn to choose." Carter thought for a moment.  
  
"Okay, I spy with my eyes, something pink," he said. Grace looked around the room, lokking to find what Carter was talking about.  
  
"Carter, can I speak with you for a moment?" Kerry appeared in the doorway to the room. Carter rose and went to meet her. Grace looked a little sad.  
  
"Will you come back?" she asked him, a note of hopefulness in her voice. Carter gave her a small smile.  
  
"Yes, I'll come back as soon as I can," said Carter. She smiled.  
  
"Okay," she said as Carter went out into the hallway. Kerry was standing there, waiting for him. She glanced curiously through the window. Turning back to Carter, she shook her head in disbelief.  
  
"Wow," she said, turning back to the window. "Carter, I really don't know what to say."  
  
"What is it, Kerry?" he asked. Kerry looked at him, surprised, for a moment, then straightened up to speak with him.  
  
"I called Ohio's Social Services Board," she said.  
  
"And?"  
  
"And they are trying to locate her records and contact the foster family. Someone will come here to pick her up and take her back when she is discharged," she told him. Carter sighed, slightly disappointed at the prospect of never seeing Lucy's child again. He nodded at Kerry.  
  
"Okay," Carter said. Not finished, Kerry cut him off.  
  
"I have a short shift today, and I told them that when they call back, to ask for me or for you."  
  
"Why me?"  
  
"Because," she continued, "You are her doctor, and you also are the one that she has had the most contact with." He nodded.  
  
"Okay," he said, "that's cool." Kerry nodded, and there was a short pause. She glanced through the glass again. Grace had gone back to watching the television. Kerry shook her head.  
  
"I can't believe this," she said. Carter laughed softly.  
  
"That's what Abby said, too," Carter said. Kerry frowned.  
  
"Abby knows about this?"  
  
"Yes, she knows," he answered.  
  
"Who else knows about this?" she asked him, frowning slightly. Carter shrugged.  
  
"I told Dr. Corday too," he said. Kerry groaned slightly.  
  
"Oh, no, Carter," she massaged her forehead. "How is she taking it?"  
  
"Not very well," he told her. There was another pause. Kerry glanced into the window again. She seemed to be contemplating something.  
  
"Um...Carter--" she looked at him with slight uncertainty, questioning him with her gaze. He gave her an encouraging smile.  
  
"Yeah, yeah, go ahead. Go in and see her. She likes the company." Carter held open the door to the room for Kerry. She hesitated briefly, then went into the room. Carter followed, letting the door swing shut behind him.  
  
***********************8  
  
And that's all for Chapter 8! Stay tuned for Chapter 9, coming soon!  
  
How will the staff, especially those who knew Lucy, react to Grace? What about Elizabeth? What will Child Services do?  
  
Hopefully, the next part will be up before the end of the week, if I don't have any more computer problems.  
  
In the meantime, don't forget to REVIEW!!! I haven't gotten one of those in a looong while.  
  
TTFN,  
  
Snapdragon 


	9. Bonding

DISCLAIMER: I don't own the staff of Cook County General, not the ER staff, anyway. I own the Pedes ward, though (hehehe...)  
  
Anyway, sorry for the delay. I know that some readers actually have been coming back to read the other stuff that I wrote.  
  
I'm actually working on another story, when I'm not writing for this one. It's about what might happen if Lucy had lived...don't know if that would work, so for now I am sticking with this AU thing.  
  
******************************************************8  
  
SAVING GRACE—CHAPTER NINE  
  
******************************************************8  
  
Dr. Weaver took a few deep, steadying breaths at the back of the room. Carter closed the door and stepped forward. Kerry followed him.  
  
"You're back," Grace said. "That was fast," she said as she smiled at Carter. He smiled back.  
  
"Yep, I am. I want to introduce you to a friend of mine, Grace," Carter began as Kerry stepped forward. She smiled gently at the child.  
  
"Hello," she said, moving closer to the child lying in the bed. Grace didn't smile back, instead, Carter could see her muscles contract in defense. She was getting nervous. Carter put his hand on Kerry's shoulder, gently pushing her back slightly. He gave her a warning glance, flashing his eyes towards the child, who was growing anxious. Kerry nodded, slightly disappointed. Carter pulled the stool up to her bedside and sat on it.  
  
"It's all right, Grace," Carter said in what he thought was a soothing voice. It worked on her. She shot a frightened glance at Kerry. "She is my friend. I promise that I would never let anyone come to see you who would hurt you, okay?" Grace hesitated a little.  
  
"Okay," she whispered, hugging her octopus to her chest, as if for protection. Carter stood up again, letting Kerry move forward cautiously.  
  
"This is Dr. Weaver," Carter told the child as Kerry approached her bedside. Grace looked at Kerry for a moment, and then gave her a tiny smile. Kerry returned the gesture.  
  
"Hi, sweetie, how are you feeling?" Kerry asked in a calm voice. With her perceived threat gone, the little girl softened up to her new visitor.  
  
"I am okay," she said quietly. "It still hurts, though."  
  
"What hurts, honey?" Kerry asked, concerned. Grace loosened her grip on Squirt, and tried to scoot up a little in her bed. She looked to Carter for support. From the foot of her bed, he nodded encouragingly.  
  
"My tummy hurts, and my back, and my head a little," she said to Kerry. Kerry sat down on the stool next to the bed and leaned forward.  
  
"Yes, we had to open up your tummy to fix some things that were hurt in the accident, so that will hurt for a little while." She explained. Grace listened to what she had to say, growing more comfortable with Kerry's presence.  
  
"Yes, Dr. Carter said that my spleen was fractured," she said to Kerry. "My leg is broken, too."  
  
"Yes, but your leg isn't broken badly, so it should heal well." Grace nodded at this news.  
  
"That's good," She said to Kerry, looking at Carter happily, as if to say, 'I'm not scared anymore.' Kerry looked at Carter, and turned back to the child, pausing for a moment.  
  
"Grace," she began carefully, "do you know where you are?"  
  
"Yes," she answered. "I am at the hospital."  
  
"Do you know what city you are in?" Kerry asked.  
  
"Chicago," Grace told her, frowning slightly. She shifted slightly in her bed.  
  
"And which state is Chicago located in?"  
  
"Illinois," Grace said, holding her octopus closer. Her eyes flicked to Carter, and he detected a bit of apprehension in them.  
  
"That's right, you are a smart girl," Kerry said, sensing the tension and trying to ease it. Her attempt didn't succeed. Grace looked away, out the window. She said nothing. Carter moved closer to Kerry.  
  
"What are you trying to get at?" Carter whispered in her ear. Kerry swept a lock of her hair behind her ear.  
  
"She needs to know that she can't stay here forever. She needs to go back, it's law," Kerry told Carter in a very low voice. Grace's head snapped back toward them.  
  
She had heard. Carter straightened up suddenly, moving slightly away from Kerry, expecting the child to lash out. She didn't.  
  
"I-I have to go back?" she asked, her voice remarkably calm, containing a note of sadness. She bit her bottom lip lightly. Kerry sighed under her breath and sat up straight in the stool.  
  
"Well, eventually, yes. You are a very long way from home, and your foster parents don't know where you are," Kerry told her.  
  
"They aren't supposed to know," Grace retorted, "That's the whole point of running away without telling them where I am going." Carter gave a short laugh under his breath. The girl certainly wasn't stupid.  
  
"I'm sure that they miss you very much," Kerry reasoned with her, but Grace shook her head sadly.  
  
"They don't," she said. "They are nice people, but it's not the same." Kerry scooted the stool closer to the child's bedside. Carter moved around to the left side of the bed, where there was another chair for visitors, and he sat down. This could turn into a long conversation.  
  
"Not the same as what, honey?" Kerry asked her gently, leaning in closer. Grace lowered her head, staring at her hands. She gave a short shrug of her shoulders.  
  
"It's not the same as it used to be, with my grandma. It was just her and me, and she loved me very much, almost as much as my mother did. But now, there are three other children in the foster house." Carter and Kerry exchanged looks. Carter gave a small nod at Grace.  
  
"You don't have to leave right away," he began. "Not until you get better and can get out of the hospital on your own," He finished. Grace looked at him with comprehension. She fiddled with the octopus' stuffed tentacles.  
  
"How long will that be?" Grace questioned him, a glimmer of hope in her eyes. Carter gave a sort of unsure half-shrug, half-headshake.  
  
"I don't know, maybe two weeks," he told her. Grace didn't have a visible reaction to this news.  
  
"So I have two weeks, then," she said hopefully. Kerry broke in.  
  
"Yes, but we have to call the S.C.C.S. to tell them when you are better, and they will send someone to come and get you and take you back to Ohio." Carter gave Kerry a somewhat questioning look.  
  
"S.C.C.S.?" He asked. Kerry nodded.  
  
"Summit County --"  
  
"Child's Services," Grace finished. Kerry nodded.  
  
"You know," she said comfortingly, "It really is the best thing for you right now, Grace." The little girl, however, shook her head.  
  
"No it isn't." She told Kerry. She looked between Carter and Kerry. "The best thing would be living with my father." Kerry sighed.  
  
"Yes, you're right, but since you don't know your father's name, the chances of finding him aren't great, especially since you don't know where he is now."  
  
"He's in Chicago!" Grace exclaimed, but Kerry shook her head.  
  
"He worked in Chicago the same time that your mother did. He could have moved far away by now." Kerry told her this with a light heart, but it was progressively getting heavier.  
  
Grace looked like she was near tears. She lowered her head and sniffled, clutching Squirt in her hands, as if desperately. Carter could tell that some of the reality of the situation was sinking into her young mind.  
  
"But he's out there," she said in a small voice, her words quivering. Carter bit his bottom lip. This poor girl would probably never find a family, but she still had so much hope. Kerry smiled sadly at Grace. She touched the child's hand reassuringly.  
  
"I promise that I will do everything in my power to find your father, okay sweetie?" Grace lifted her head and wiped away her tears. She looked at Carter, as if for a confirmation that Kerry's promise was real. Carter nodded reassuringly, and Grace turned back to Kerry.  
  
"Thank you, Dr. Weaver." Kerry stood and nodded, then, gripping her crutch, and walking quickly out of the door. Grace sighed and lay back against her pillow. Carter scooted his chair closer to her bedside. The two of them sat in silence for a moment.  
  
"So now what?" Grace asked Carter, a note of uncertainty in her voice. She turned her head to look at him. Carter gave her a small smile.  
  
"Now you get to hang out here for a while," he said. Grace lightly bit her lower lip and gave a small nod.  
  
"Okay," she said. Carter smiled at her, glad that she wasn't too upset about having to leave. Secretly, he was also glad that she would stay for a while longer.  
  
As they sat in the midst of another silent spell, the quiet was broken as the door to the room opened. A nurse walked into the room, clipboard in hand. She was a jolly-looking nurse, with short, curly golden-blonde hair and a full figure. She smiled at Grace when she walked into the room.  
  
"Good morning, Miss Grace," she said cheerily. Shadows of frown lines appeared on the childs face, as if she was unsure why this nurse was being so kind and jolly.  
  
"Good morning," she replied politely. The nurse approached her bedside with the clipboard.  
  
"My name is Lorraine, and I am going to be your daytime nurse," the woman said. "I'm also going to make sure that you get breakfast, lunch, and dinner each day."  
  
"Okay," Grace nodded. Lorraine smiled again and nodded. She handed her clipboard to Grace. Carter leaned over to look at it. The sheet of paper attached to the clipboard looked like a sort of menu.  
  
"This is an order form for your meals," Nurse Lorraine explained to Grace, indicating the paper on the clipboard. She handed Grace a pen from the counter behind her. "All you have to do," she continued, "is check the boxes next to each thing that you want. You get two options for most of the meals, main dish and fruit or vegetable. You also get to choose your drink."  
  
"Okay," Grace said. She straightened up as much as she could without sitting, and held the pen in her hand, staring at the menu.  
  
"I'll be back soon to pick that up, but I need to go see another patient quickly, okay?" the nurse said. Grace nodded, and the nurse left the room.  
  
Carter watched as the child took the pen between her fingers and stared intently at the meal options. She held the clipboard in her left hand and the pen in her right. It was a very difficult position to write in, but she tried. After a moment of watching her struggle, Carter broke in.  
  
"Do you want me to help you?" Grace shook her head.  
  
"I can do it," she said, determined. After a moment, however, it became too much for her to try to do at once. Carter smiled as she reluctantly handed over the clipboard to him. She seemed not to like the interdependence.  
  
"Can you read?" Carter asked her, taking the pen from her.  
  
"Of course I can read!" she said, "I just can't do this laying down." Carter nodded.  
  
"Well then," he said, setting the board on his knee, "Breakfast: choose two of the following: pancakes, scrambled eggs, hash browns, or sausage" he asked, reading Grace the options off of the paper.  
  
"Pancakes and eggs," she said. Carter circled the items on the menu.  
  
"Good choice," he said. "Do you prefer apple juice or orange juice?"  
  
"Orange juice."  
  
"Okay, on to lunch," Carter began. He helped the child go through the day's food choices, and soon Nurse Lorraine came back to collect the menu. As she was taking the clipboard from him, Carter's pager went off. Sure enough, it was the ER, calling him back to his work.  
  
"What's that?" Grace asked, curiously. Carter cleared the page and clipped the device back onto his belt loop. He rose from his seat.  
  
"That's my pager," he told her.  
  
"Are you leaving?"  
  
"I have to get back downstairs so that I can help some other people get better," he said. "I have to do my job."  
  
"Will you come back to visit later?" Grace asked him hopefully. Carter smiled at her.  
  
"Of course I will. I will come back as soon as I finish my shift." Grace smiled.  
  
"Okay, see you soon," she said. Carter looked back at her quickly before turning and making his way back down to the Emergency Department.  
  
"Hey, Carter, we've got multiple traumas coming in, where were you?" Susan asked him. He had no sooner gotten off of the elevator when Susan had accosted him.  
  
"Checking up on a patient," Carter said as he grabbed a yellow gown and tied it on, going out with Susan to the ambulance [AN-if anybody knows what those things are called, please tell me]. "What happened?"  
  
"Couple of thugs tried to rob a drugstore at gunpoint, cops got involved, store owner, a cop, and both robbers took bullets," she said as the first ambulance pulled up.  
  
"Great," Carter said. "Bring it on."  
  
******************  
  
"Hey Carter." Carter turned from the patient chart he was filling out.  
  
"Oh, hey Abby, what's up?" Abby stood in the doorway, arms crossed over her chest. Carter signed the chart and gave it to the nurse standing by.  
  
"Could I speak to you for a moment?"  
  
"Sure," he said. He turned to the elderly woman sitting on the gurney. "Mrs. Zeloc, would you excuse me for a moment?" The woman nodded, and Carter left the room. In the hallway, he put the pen into the pocket of his lab coat. "What is it?"  
  
"Well, I've been thinking," she began, but stopped abruptly.  
  
"That's a change," Carter chuckled.  
  
"Hey!" Abby exclaimed, taking a playful swipe at Carter's head. He moved it just in time.  
  
"So what is it, really?"  
  
"Well," Abby said, leaning against the wall, arms crossed again. "I want to go visit your patient, Lucy's kid."  
  
"Okay," Carter began. "Can I ask why?" Abby shrugged.  
  
"Curiosity. I liked Lucy, and I feel kind of bad about missing her photo when I went through the girl's things. But I want to go up and visit her." Carter nodded.  
  
"So why are you asking me?" he asked, curious. If she wanted to see Grace, she could have gone herself.  
  
"Because I don't really want to go alone, and since you're her doctor..." Abby's voice trailed off. Carter looked at her, reading the begging look in her eyes. He exhaled quickly.  
  
"All right, all right," he said. Abby smiled.  
  
"Thanks, Carter, you're the best," she said. "What time are you off?" Carter glanced at the clock. It was 5:45.  
  
"Another 15 minutes, and I'll be good to go," he told her. Abby nodded.  
  
"Okay, then. I was off at 5:00, so I'll just wait for you in the lounge or something."  
  
"That's fine," he said. "See you in 15." With that, he pushed open the door to Exam 2. "Okay, how are you doing?" he asked the woman, ears open to her complaints.  
  
Fifteen minutes later, Carter handed off his patients and headed for the lounge. He clocked out, pulled off his white coat and grabbed his jacket. Abby had already changed into her normal clothes, and was waiting for him in the lounge.  
  
"Ready to go?" he asked her, opening the lounge door for her, allowing her to slip past him.  
  
"Yep," she said, leading the way to the elevators. They rode to the fifth floor, and went down the hall to the room. Carter stopped in front of the door before going in.  
  
"What?" Abby asked, slightly confused. Carter let out a small sigh.  
  
"She's a little bit scared of new people," he told her. Abby nodded.  
  
"I won't bite, I promise," she said, jokingly. "Don't worry," she assured him. Carter opened the door to the room, walking in.  
  
He saw that the second space in the room was occupied, another bed filling in the empty space that had been there that morning. In the bed slept another girl, about eight or nine years old, with mousy light-brown hair.  
  
"Hi, Dr. Carter," came a cheerful voice from the first bed. He looked over to see Grace, smiling at him. He walked over to her bedside.  
  
"Hello, Miss Knight," he greeted her. "How are you this evening?"  
  
"I'm feeling better," she told him. She looked better as well. Her cheeks had more color in them, and her bed had been propped up so that she was in a sitting position.  
  
"You're sitting up," Carter observed. Grace nodded.  
  
"Nurse Lorraine said that she didn't see any harm in it. She said that it was okay as long as I wasn't straining my stomach muscles." She said this happily. Grace glanced over at Abby, who still lingered over the foot of her bed. "Hello," she said to Abby, giving her a small smile.  
  
"Grace, this is Abby. She's a nurse in the Emergency Room." Grace nodded slowly.  
  
"Oh," she said. "It's nice to meet you."  
  
"It's a pleasure to meet you, too," Abby said, moving closer to Grace and reaching out her hand. The child shook it.  
  
"So what have you been up to all day?" Carter asked. She shrugged.  
  
"I watched a movie. Nurse Lorraine brought the Lion King from the playroom and let me watch it in here. After the movie ended, they brought Amanda in," she gestured to the girl in the other bed.  
  
"Is she a nice girl?" Abby asked. Grace shrugged.  
  
"I don't know, she's been asleep ever since they brought her in. She had surgery and she hasn't woken up yet." Carter nodded.  
  
"Oh, yes, you were like that after your surgery, too," he told her. She frowned a little.  
  
"Maybe, but at least I was asleep at night, not during the day!" Grace suddenly noticed that Carter wasn't wearing his lab coat. "Hey, where's your white coat?" Carter chuckled.  
  
"It's downstairs. I only wear that when I work. I'm off work now."  
  
"Then how come you're up here with me?" Abby and Carter exchanged glances.  
  
"I wanted to come see you, and I asked Dr. Carter to come with me," Abby said quickly.  
  
"Okay," the girl said. "I like having people to talk to. Amanda's parents have been here nearly all day, but nobody but the nurse comes to visit me," Grace smiled.  
  
"Well, we've come to see you," Carter told her, touching her shoulder. Grace looked up at him, grinning.  
  
"Thank you," she said genuinely. "I've been bored all day, except for when you came to visit me earlier." Carter smiled back at her. It was hard not to: Grace's smile was contagious. There was a pause for a moment. Abby looked around at the sleeping girl, Amanda, in the bed across the room.  
  
"Where are her parents now?" Abby asked. Grace shrugged.  
  
"I think that her dad is at work, and her mom went down to the gift shop to find some Get Well balloons." Abby nodded. She glanced around the room, and noticed something on a table under the television.  
  
"Hey, Grace, would you like to play a game?" she asked as she picked up the box off of the table. The child's face lit up.  
  
"I would like that very much," she said, grinning from ear-to-ear. Carter read the box.  
  
"Do you like Chutes and Ladders?" he asked as Abby sat in the chair on the left side of her bed and set the game out on Grace's lap table.  
  
"Yes," she said. She looked at Abby, then at Carter. "Aren't you playing too, Dr. Carter?" she asked hopefully. Carter thought for a moment.  
  
"Well," he said, "I don't know--"  
  
"Party pooper," Abby said, a smile playing at her lips. Carter snorted softly at her, then took a seat.  
  
"Good," Grace said. The box was opened, and the board set out. "Choose a piece," she told them. "I'm going to be this one, 'cause she sort of looks like me," she said as she held up a small cardboard cutout playing piece resembling a blonde-haired girl.  
  
"I'll take this one," Abby chose a girl with red hair and freckles. Carter selected a boy with brown hair, and they began to play the game.  
  
"I like this game," Grace said as she rolled the dice and landed on a ladder.  
  
"Do you play a lot?" Carter asked.  
  
"Not this game, I've only placed once or twice, while I was staying over a friend's house." Abby's turn to move.  
  
"What kinds of games do you like to play?" she asked, advancing her piece.  
  
"I really like card games and mind games."  
  
"Mind games?"  
  
"Yeah, like checkers and Chinese checkers and Stratego, and that stuff," Carter rolled the dice and listened to her.  
  
"So what sorts of card games do you play?"  
  
"Ummm....let's see...I know Go Fish, Crazy Eights, Egyptian Corkscrew, Speed, War, and Water Sharks," she said, taking her turn again.  
  
"Oh, I love Egyptian Corkscrew and Speed, they are my favorites," Abby said. Grace smiled at her.  
  
"Maybe we can play sometime. I will be here for two weeks, after all." They continued to play the game and chat about nothing in particular. After about 10 minutes, the door to the room swung open.  
  
A woman stood there, maybe in her mid-thirties. She was petite, and had short, light-brown hair and rather high cheekbones. She carried some brightly colored balloons in her hand, and stopped at the sight of them.  
  
"Oh, hello there," she said. Her gaze jumped from Grace to Carter to Abby and back again.  
  
"Hello," Carter said to the woman.  
  
"I'm Mary Boatsman, Amanda's mother," she said, crossing the room to set the balloons on her daughter's bedside table. Amanda continued to sleep soundly.  
  
"John Carter," he said, giving her a friendly smile. Mary stood, looking at the three of them. Abby had landed at the top of a long chute, and was complaining about moving back, trying to cheat her way out of the fate. Grace was laughing, insisting that she was cheating, while Abby denied it, unable to keep a straight face. They laughed, and Carter watched them, chuckling at the sight of the two of them joking around. Mary watched them too.  
  
"What a cute family," she said, looking at them. Carter, the only one really paying attention, looked at her with slight confusion.  
  
"No, no, we aren't her parents. I'm her doctor, that's her nurse," he explained. Well, one of her nurses.  
  
"Dr. Carter, it's your turn," Grace said, eyes sparkling from laughter.  
  
"Come on, Carter, you're holding up the game," Abby smiled, turning to him. Mary smiled at him and turned, crossing the room again to sit at her daughter's bedside.  
  
"I'm coming, I'm coming." Carter sat down again in his stool and took the dice into his hands.  
  
************************************************8  
  
So that's all for chapter nine! Keep watching for updates on the weekends, I work the most on Fridays and Saturdays when I don't have to worry about schoolwork.  
  
Time for READER SHOUT-OUTS!!!!! I'd like to thank:  
  
MeliGurlJo for being a wonderful loyal reader and reviewer! I'd like to say, too, that if you e-mail me a name, age, and description, I will gladly create a patient or other character in your honor. Callista Rose, Mac Abbott, and Lucy917 for reading and for reviewing!  
  
That's all for now. Stick around for chapter 10!  
  
Snapdragon 


	10. Blossoms

DISCLAIMER: yada, yada, yada...this is getting reaaally old. It's in my story. Find it if the desire is overpowering. Who can resist a good disclaimer, right?  
  
By the way, for the purpose of the plot of this fic, a couple of people who have died were risen from the dead. Millicent Carter, John Carter's grandmother, and Robert Romano never died, and Chuny is still on staff, I don't quite remember which of the nurses are in season 10 (the current season) who were around in season 6. As a result, I am making people up and occasionally bringing people back. Please bear with me, this is my first fic, after all.

* * *

SAVING GRACE—CHAPTER 10

* * *

"Hey, Carter, is Kerry around?" Lydia called as he came out of Exam 4 at noon a few days later. The ER was bustling with patients, even though it was a Saturday afternoon. The temperature had begun to drop, though it was only September, and a cold rain was falling.  
  
Over the past couple of days, he had gone through the motions rather uneventfully. He had gone to work at the usual odd hours, taken on the usual traumas and complaining patients who seldom had anything wrong with them. Every so often, when he was off or on break, he would go to visit Grace on the fifth floor.  
  
The child had made amazing progress in the past few days. Though still healing, she could sit up on her own. Her muscles were healing. She had begun to become quite the talker, turning from a quiet, scared little girl into a garrulous chatterbox. She liked to talk to Carter about home. He had learned quite a lot from her in the last few days.  
  
Carter had found out that she loved animals, especially the fish and the penguins at the zoo. Grace loved to read, and she read everything that her reading level allowed for. She didn't have the best handwriting, but she tried nonetheless. She loved to be around people, as long as she knew them. She had taken a liking to Carter, and seemed to feel most comfortable around him.  
  
Carter made his way through a swarm of patients and over to the Admitting Desk where Lydia stood, telephone in hand.  
  
"No, I don't think she's on today," he told her, placing a patient chart among others in the discharge pile. He shifted through the stack of clipboards of patients waiting to be treated. Lydia sighed, annoyed.  
  
"Okay," she said. She put the phone back up to her ear. "No, I'm sorry, Dr. Weaver is off--" her voice drifted into the background as Carter tuned out her voice. He picked out the clipboard of a young woman complaining of abdominal pains off of the top of the stack. He looked up and out of the corner of his eye he saw Lydia frowning at him.  
  
"What?" he asked. Lydia held a finger to her lips and continued to speak into the phone.  
  
"Yes, yes.....of course....just a moment," she covered the mouthpiece of the telephone with her hand. "Someone wants to speak to you about a patient," she said, holding out the phone to Carter.  
  
"Who is it?"  
  
"Some guy from the Summit County Children's Services board, something about a transfer. Anyway, whatever it is, he wanted to speak to you or Dr. Weaver," Lydia said. Carter hesitated for a moment.  
  
"Okay, let me talk to him," he said, Lydia handing him the phone. He held it to his ear and took a short breath. "This is Dr. Carter."  
  
"Yes, Dr. Carter, my name is Harold Kasdan from the Summit County Children's Services."  
  
"I understand that you wished to speak with me about a patient of mine," Carter said, wishing that this man, Mr. Kasdan, would cut to the chase.  
  
"Yes, Grace Knight."  
  
"Yes." There was a short pause on the other end of the line.  
  
"Well, let me explain my situation. Miss Knight is a ward of the state, and has been ever since her grandmother died in July."  
  
"I understand."  
  
"Because she is a ward of the state of Ohio, and her current foster family lives in the state, my colleagues and myselfl feel that it would be best for the child if she were transferred back to an Ohio children's hospital, where her foster parents and the SCCS can keep an eye on her."  
  
Carter let the words ring in his ears for a moment. They wanted to take her back to Ohio? The poor girl wasn't ready to go back; she didn't want to go back. Carter didn't want her to go back, for more than one reason.  
  
"Well, are you-- are you sure that that's a good idea?" he stammered slightly. He rubbed his upper lip with his sleeve.  
  
"What do you mean to say, Doctor?" Came the gruff voice on the other end questioningly. Carter gathered his words.  
  
"Um, I think that it would be better if Grace, Miss Knight, stays with us until she has recovered and is well for the trip back there," he said. He leaned his back against the counter of the Admitting Desk.  
  
"Why do you say that?"  
  
"I am her doctor here, and I know in more detail than anyone there what she has been through, and the doctors here at County know exactly what treatments she needs." He knew that the answer sounded lame as soon as the words left his lips.  
  
"We would have her charts transferred, that wouldn't be a problem."  
  
"Yes, but Miss Knight has expressed interest in remaining here in Chicago until her care is complete," Carter said, his voice becoming more tense. He hoped that the SCCS representative on the other line wouldn't be able to detect it. There was a pause on the other line.  
  
"And you feel that the child, a five-year-old girl, could know what the best course of action is in this situation?"  
  
"In this case, yes. I share in her opinion, and I think that this is the best decision for the time being," Carter said into the mouthpiece, his voice growing a little bit louder.  
  
"You okay, Carter?" Susan asked him, stopping her work with a patient chart when she overheard his conversation. Carter held up a hand, signifying that he was fine. Susan shrugged. "Okay, then. Have it your way," she said. Carter rolled his eyes.  
  
"And do your colleagues at the hospital agree with your decision?"  
  
"Yes!" Carter exclaimed. "I don't believe that it is in the child's best interest to be transferred to another hospital until her course of treatment here has been completed."  
  
"Are her injuries really that serious, that she needs to remain there for medical care?"  
  
"She sustained some edemic swelling of the cranium, a severe splenic fracture, contusions on the forehead and lateral aspects of her arms and legs, and oblique open fracture of the tibia." Carter attempted to use medical jargon to mess with the man's mind. It seemed to work. There was a short pause on the other end.  
  
"Okay, Doctor, okay. She can stay until she recovers enough to be brought back."  
  
"I'm glad we agree then."  
  
"So I'll send a representative over there to pick Miss Knight up when she recuperates," Mr. Kasdan resolved. Carter felt himself nodding, though he knew perfectly well that the man on the other end couldn't see the gesture.  
  
"That sounds good." he told Mr. Kasdan. There was a short pause. Then Carter remembered something. "Could I ask you another question?"  
  
"Go ahead."  
  
"Have you been able to locate the child's father?" Mr. Kasdan cleared his throat on the other end.  
  
"No, we can't even get a name." Carter crossed his left arm over his chest.  
  
"So nobody knows who the father of this child is?"  
  
"Nobody except the mother and the grandmother, who are both deceased."  
  
"What about a birth certificate? Hospital records?"  
  
"We don't have access to those at this time." Carter's brow contracted in disbelief.  
  
"But if you are the child's legal guardian, or whatever, then don't you have access to this stuff?"  
  
"Technically, no, all of those things are with her great-grandfather."  
  
"Great-grandfather?" Grace had never mentioned other grandparents. "Well, if she has another living relative, then shouldn't she be in her custody?"  
  
"No," Mr. Kasdan said firmly. "This Ruth Knight cannot even take care of herself, let alone a small child. She has been in a nursing home for the last six years. Although she is in this condition, she still is the last remaining relative, and until she dies, she has possession over all of those assets, like the medical records."  
  
"And you can't get to them?"  
  
"I'm afraid not. We have to have a court order to enter the house. Until then, we have to leave everything alone." Carter sighed, rubbing his forehead with his free hand.  
  
"So there's nothing that you can do? Nothing?"  
  
"Well, Miss Barbara Knight had a few things that we have in our possession- " There was a break in his voice.  
  
"What?" Carter asked, in case the guy had had a heart attack or something. Listening carefully, he heard muffled voices as Mr. Kasdan conversed with another person in the background. Aftter a moment, Carter heard him clear his throat quickly.  
  
"I'm sorry," Mr. Kasdan said gruffly, coming back on the line. "Could you state your name again, please?"  
  
"John Carter."  
  
"John Truman Carter?" Carter snorted.  
  
"Yeah," he said, "that's my name. How many John Truman Carter's can you get?" He laughed softly. It certainly wasn't a common middle name.  
  
"And you had a relationship with Miss Barbara Knight?"  
  
"If you could call it that. I spoke with her a few times. That's all," Carter said, growing slightly more confused with each passing minute,  
  
"Okay. The reason I ask is that I have a few things here that Miss Knight left to you in her will when she died. One of them, a thick envelope, has your name on it, but we weren't sure because your grandfather's name is the same as yours, correct?" Hearing this, Carter felt a strange feeling growing in the pit of his stomach. He had barely even known Lucy's mother, yet she willed a few things to him. They were probably just trinkets, maybe a photo of Lucy or something. He swallowed.  
  
"Yes,, that's right. My grandfather never knew Barbara Knight, though."  
  
"Right, right. I can send this to you right away. You should have had this stuff two months ago."  
  
"So she left me something more than what was in the envelope?" Carter asked, bewildered.  
  
"Yes, there's a box for you somewhere."  
  
"And if you can't mail it, then how will I get it?"  
  
"I'll send it with the representative who goes over there to Chicago to pick up the young Miss Knight from the hospital when she has recovered."  
  
"Okay," Carter said, nodding. "That sounds fine."  
  
"Hey Carter," Susan put her hand on his shoulder, as if to shake him back to reality. "We've got a trauma coming in. MVA, one major, two minors, ETA five minutes." Carter nodded at her.  
  
"Okay, well," Carter said, steadying himself. "I have to go, there's a trauma coming in and I need to be there. Could you just mail that envelope to me?"  
  
"Yeah, sure, no problem. Thanks for taking time to talk to me."  
  
"Likewise. No doubt I'll speak to you again soon anyways," Carter said into the mouthpiece as he hung up the phone. He stood for a moment, staring absentmindedly at the telephone. He turned and leaned against the counter of Admit, letting out a breath, stuffing his hands into his pockets.  
  
This was very strange, no denying it. Barbara Knight had left him something in her will? He barely knew her. He guessed, though, that she felt a special bond to him. He had been Barbara's closest link to her daughter, after all. Lucy had talked about him, she had said. What she had talked about, though, Carter would never know.  
  
"Hey, Carter, you okay?" asked Susan, jolting him back into reality.  
  
"Huh?" he said, taking his hands out of his pockets. "Oh, yeah, Susan, I'm fine."  
  
"You sure?" she asked him skeptically, raising her eyebrows. "You look out of it."  
  
"No, no, I'm good. Where's this trauma?" Susan sighed lightly.  
  
"The major was DOA at the scene, the minors are coming, though."  
  
"Okay," Carter said, noticing lights out in the ambulance bay. "That's our cue." The two of them, accompanied by three or four nurses, went out to meet the ambulances.  
  
"Dr. Weaver, SCCS called while you were off," Carter called as Kerry walked through the entrance to the Emergency Room. Kerry walked up to the Admit Desk to sign herself in, ready to begin her shift.  
  
"Really? Did one of the desk clerks get a call-back number for me?" she asked as Carter turned in a patient chart of a woman with gastroenteritis that he had discharged.  
  
"Um, that wasn't necessary." At this, Kerry's head snapped around.  
  
"What do you mean, it wasn't necessary?" she demanded, beginning to make her way back to the lounge.  
  
"Well," he said, following her. "They spoke to me."  
  
"So why did they call?"  
  
"They thought that it would be best if they had the child transferred back to a children's hospital in Cleveland."  
  
"What?" Kerry asked, shocked. "Why would they want to transfer her?"  
  
"Because, legally, she is in their custody, and they want to be able to get to her if they need to." Kerry opened her locker and grabbed her white coat, stuffing her fall jacket into the locker. She crossed the room and sank into the sofa.  
  
"What did you tell them?" she asked anxiously. Carter pulled up one of the chairs from the table and sat in it, backwards, facing his colleague.  
  
"I told them that it was not in the child's best interest," he said. "He made a short argument."  
  
"But you won, right?" Kerry asked. "That's just stupid, you can't pull her out in the middle of her treatment!" she exclaimed.  
  
"No worries, I pulled some medical jargon on him, making her condition seem worse than it actually is, and he backed off." he said. Kerry's eyes widened slightly, a shadow of a smile on her lips.  
  
"You didn't," she said. Carter nodded.  
  
"I did."  
  
"What did you tell him?" Carter grinned.  
  
"I simply explained that she has a splenic fracture, contusions on the forehead and lateral aspects of her arms and legs, oblique fracture of the tibia, et cetera," he told her. Kerry laughed softly.  
  
"And he bought that?"  
  
"He did. The hook was baited, and the fish bit." Kerry shook her head.  
  
"How long have you been on?"  
  
"Since six this morning." Kerry rose from the sofa and walked out to the door of the Lounge. "I'm off right now," he finished as the clock hit 6:00 pm.  
  
"All right, all right, go," Kerry said as she left the room. Carter spun the combination to his locker, and took off his white coat and pulled out his jacket. As he shut the door to the locker, Kerry stuck her head back into the room.  
  
"What?" Carter asked.  
  
"Have they found her family yet?" Carter shook his head.  
  
"No, they haven't." Kerry shook her head.  
  
"I know I shouldn't get too emotionally attached to this girl," she began. Carter cut her off.  
  
"Kerry, I think that we are all emotional about this one," he said. Kerry paused for a moment, taking in his words. She looked down at the floor, then back up. She nodded her head.  
  
"I suppose you're right. It's too late to avoid emotions now."  
  
"It was too late for that when we found out that she is Lucy's child," Carter said gently. He was only guessing for Kerry's position, but he knew that that was true of himself.  
  
"Yes," Kerry said. "I don't know why, but I feel particularly compelled to see that she is happy." Carter nodded in agreement.  
  
"I do, too," he said. "I still feel partly responsible for Lucy's death."  
  
"I wish that I could have found the two of you sooner," Kerry agreed.  
  
"It wasn't--" Carter began. He was cut off by one of the nurses calling to Kerry.  
  
"Dr. Weaver, I've got a kid with an asthma attack who's not responding to the nebs," she called, her voice sounding distant to Carter.  
  
"Okay," Kerry called back. She gave Carter a sympathetic look. "Go, you're off, go home." Carter watched her turn and use her crutch to push open the doorway of the lounge, walking out into the busy Emergency Room.  
  
But Carter wasn't going to go home. Not yet, anyway. He wanted to go visit the young Miss Knight in her room. He had grown quite fond of the little girl in the last few days, and she always seemed to look forward to his visits.  
  
It was strange, he thought, as he pushed the up button on the elevator, waiting for it to arrive. Carter noticed every day that Grace was a lot like Lucy. Her physical features were nearly identical: her smile, her laugh, her sparkling sea-blue eyes, her hair. But Grace also had a few of Lucy's personality traits, some of which Carter had had noticed over the time visiting her in the last four days.  
  
Carter stepped into the elevator and jammed his finger into the button that would take him to the fifth floor. He leaned back against the elevator wall and let out a long breath. Grace was very stubborn, and when she had set her mind on something, she would follow through with it. Though still too weak to sit up on her own, she had been adamant about getting out of her room, and Holly had promised that she could get into a wheelchair tomorrow to get around.  
  
Grace was also very good working with people, just as Lucy had been. She had quickly befriended her roommate, Amanda, and she comforted the girl when her parents had to leave, distracting her by asking the nurse to move their beds together so that they could play a game. Carter smiled inwardly as he got off of the elevator and walked down the hall.  
  
"Good evening, Dr. Carter, come to check up on your patient?" A nurse with short, light-brown hair asked him. Carter returned her smile.  
  
"Of course, Margaret," he said.  
  
"Be my guest, she's probably up and waiting for you."  
  
"Thank you," Carter said. He had gotten to know most of the staff of the Pedes ward by now, and Margaret Duffy was a particularly kind nurse. She had been around at the time that Lucy was killed, and knew what Grace meant to the hospital staff, particularly those in the ER who knew Lucy best.  
  
Carter made his way back down the now-familiar corridor to the room where Grace was staying. He looked through the glass window into the room before he entered to see Grace smiling, the curtain between her bed and Amanda's opened. Both girls seemed to be harboring a supply of crayons and paper, scribbling away. Carter turned the knob of the door and pushed it open. Grace's head turned toward him.  
  
"Hi!" she said excitedly. She was making a progressive recovery, and had a very positive attitude about making the most of her hospital stay. Carter noticed now, past her friendly smile, that Grace's hair had been braided into two French-braids that hung an inch or two past her shoulders and were tied with blue ribbons. She was dressed, as usual, in her pink hospital gown.  
  
"Hello, Grace," Carter said, crossing to the foot of her bed and looking at her chart. As usual, her vitals were normal, and there was no sign in her blood that she was ill, except for the IV fluids, antibiotics, and painkillers that she was still on.  
  
"Are you off work?" she asked. "Or are you just taking a break?"  
  
"I'm off, so I can stay with you longer tonight," he said, making Grace smile a small smile. He pulled up a chair to her bedside and began to sit down. "I like your hairstyle," he said.  
  
"Thank you," she said. "I had a bath today, Holly helped me. I like my hair too, I wish that I could do the braid on my own."  
  
"Who did it? It looks very nice," Carter told her, sitting down next to her bedside.  
  
"Dr. Corday did them. She's good, isn't she?" Carter froze. Elizabeth had been in to see Grace? He thought that she didn't want to see her; she had, after all, nearly run out of the room the first time that she saw the child.  
  
"Dr. Corday came to see you?"  
  
"Yes, she's the one that opened my belly and fixed my spleen," the child said. Carter nodded, still in a mild shock.  
  
"When did she visit you?"  
  
"Earlier today, about 10:00 this morning. She's very nice, and she offered to braid my hair for me. She says that she has a daughter who's my age. Her name is Ella," Grace said very fast, talking excitedly. "She said maybe I could meet her sometime. I like meeting new people."  
  
"I'll bet. Have you been getting a lot of new visitors?" Grace furrowed her brow, thinking for a moment.  
  
"Yes," she said slowly. "A lot of people have come to see me. I don't remember all of them, but I remember a couple of people."  
  
"Which ones?" Carter asked her, curious now.  
  
"I remember Dr. Kovac the best," she giggled. "He's nice, and he wanted me to call him Luka. I like his accent. Umm...a few people from the surgery part of the hospital came, but I don't remember many of them. Nurse Lockhart came, and she said to call her Abby, and another nurse, her name is Chuny, she came to visit. I remember Dr. Romano too. He's a funny person, and he says his nickname is Rocket. He has a fake arm!" she exclaimed excitedly. Carter was flabbergasted. Had the entire hospital come to visit her?  
  
"Wow, that is a lot of visitors." Grace nodded, pigtails bouncing up and down.  
  
"Some of the ones that came said that I looked like my mother. Did everyone here know her?"  
  
"Yes," Carter said slowly. "Yes, they knew her. Some of them didn't know her, probably, but they have heard of her." Grace's eyes grew wide.  
  
"Wow," she said. "How did they know her?"  
  
"Lucy--your mom--used to work here," Carter explained.  
  
"She wasn't a doctor, though," Grace said. "Grandma told me that she was working to be a doctor, but she died before she finished school." She looked at Carter for confirmation of this information. He nodded. He really wanted to get off of the topic. He wasn't sure if Grace knew about the stabbing or anything, but he didn't want to discuss it.  
  
"That's right," he said. He noticed a piece of drawing paper on the table in front of Grace, colorfully scribbled on with crayons. "I like your picture," he changed the subject.  
  
"Thank you. It's not very good, but I tried." The drawing depicted a stick man and woman wearing shorts and a skirt, respectively. There were three smaller figures next to the two, presumably children; there were two boys and a girl, by the way that they were dressed. The five people stood inside of the walls of a brown house, with a tree drawn outside of the house.  
  
"Will you tell me about it?" Carter asked. Grace nodded, and took it off of the table, holding it so that he could see properly.  
  
"This is Mr. and Mrs. Thompson," she said, pointing to the two taller figures.  
  
"Are they your neighbors?" Carter asked. Grace shook her head.  
  
"No," she said. "They are my foster parents."  
  
"Are those the other kids living in the house?" he asked. Grace nodded, pointing to each one in turn.  
  
"This is Iris," she said, indicating the girl with brown hair and a purple skirt. "Her full name is Iris Christine Bercot. She's really cool, she's 11, and she liked me. She played with me when the boys wouldn't. We shared a room at the foster house."  
  
"It's good that she was nice to you," Carter said.  
  
"I'm glad, she was my friend. She's a lot older than me, and she knows a lot. She doesn't like to talk about her parents, though. I think I overheard Mr. and Mrs. Thompson, and Iris' mom killed herself, and she was taken away from her dad." She moved on to the next stick drawing, a boy with blonde hair that stuck up, and glasses. "This is Brian Moore. He's eight, and he's rough. He is angry a lot, and he doesn't like me at all. I heard Iris tell me that his parents both drank a lot, and Bryan has a disease because of it."  
  
"FAS," Carter mumbled softly to himself. Grace looked up questioningly for a moment, but then turned back to her drawing.  
  
"This," she said, pointing at a darker stick figure with black hair, "is Lamont Love. He's seven. He's mean sometimes, and he doesn't like me either. He plays with Brian, mostly, because he hates Iris and me. Iris says that Lamont's got ADHD and that his mom got arrested for something illegal. Iris wouldn't tell me, though. She said that I'm too young."  
  
"Oh," Carter said. "So this is your foster family, huh?"  
  
"Yep," Grace said, setting the drawing back onto the table. "They are nice people, Mr. and Mrs. Thompson. They go to church and take us with them on Sundays."  
  
"Do you like church?" Grace shrugged.  
  
"It's okay," she said. "I was baptized when I was a baby, so I guess I'm supposed to go. It's not bad, and I like the singing. Mrs. Thompson lets me read the song book and copy from that if I get impatient. That's what I do."  
  
"Do you know what church you were baptized in?" Carter asked. Grace sat back and thought for a moment.  
  
"The Catholic church." Carter nodded.  
  
"Okay, I was just wondering." Grace put the paper and crayons on a table close to her bed.  
  
"Dr. Carter, do you want to play cards with me?" she asked, picking up a deck of cards from her bedside table.  
  
"Sure, I'll play," he said. "Where'd you get those cards?" he asked.  
  
"Nurse Lorraine brought them from the playroom," she answered, taking the cards out of the package. Across the room, Amanda looked up from her own drawing.  
  
"Can I play too, Grace?" she asked. Grace beamed.  
  
"Sure!" she said. "Can you come over all right?" Amanda nodded. Carter stood up.  
  
"Hello, Dr. Carter," she said, pushing her lap table aside.  
  
"Hello, Amanda," he said, crossing the room to her bed. "Do you need help?"  
  
"No," Amanda said, shaking her head. "I can do it." She slowly lowered herself, with Carter's help, into a wheelchair sitting by her bed, and Carter pushed the chair over to the side of Grace's bed, where Amanda could reach the bed.  
  
"Okay, what do you want to play?" Grace asked, shuffling the cards as best as a five-year-old could. Carter sat back down in his chair.  
  
"Do you know how to play Bluff?" he asked her. The name of the game, he really knew, was BS, but that name wasn't too suitable for a child. Grace shook her head.  
  
"No, could you teach me?" she asked, sounding eager. Carter gave her a smile, taking the deck of cards and shuffling them well. He began to deal the cards to Grace, Amanda, and himself.  
  
"Sure," he said. He continued dealing out the deck. "What you do is..."

* * *

That's all for Chapter 10! Stay tuned next time for Carter musings and a twist in events!  
  
Okay, and before you go doing the math on me (which I'm sure most of you already did), yes, I did bump Ella's age up a bit. I'm going to pretend that Ella and Grace are the same age for the sake of the future of this story, so please bear with me.  
  
Again, I'd like to thank all of my reviewers, and to remind everyone else who reads this that it doesn't take long to review!!!  
  
Arrivederci!  
  
Snapdragon. 


	11. Iron

DISCLAIMER—ho hum, doo da dee, anything is mine that you don't recognize, everything else belongs to the cast and crew of ER!  
  
Sorry to keep you all waiting, here's chapter 11!  
  
***********************************************  
  
SAVING GRACE—CHAPTER 11  
  
***********************************************  
  
Carter left County that night at around eight O'clock, the memory of a smile on his lips. Though the two kids were only 5 and 8 years old, he'd genuinely had a good time playing cards with them. It had been a lot of fun, really. Grace had picked up the concept of Bluff, the card game, pretty quickly, and they had a great game before Amanda won. After that, they had had some more fun with the cards, playing rounds of Cray Eights and Egyptian Corkscrew, having a blast. Carter hardly even remembered the time until Nurse Lorraine came back to bring in evening meals for Grace and Amanda.  
  
So with that, Carter said good-bye and left, promising to come back the next day. Amanda and her mother said goodbye, as Grace looked a little upset at his having to leave. She said farewell, but still wished to have company.  
  
Carter thought, as he made his way up the staircase to the El platform that maybe having Amanda Boatsman with her in the room was not having a good effect on her attitude. Even though Grace and Amanda got along beautifully, Carter thought that the former could be having slight jealousy problems. Amanda's parents and brother came by a lot; the child was rarely left alone except at night and for short periods during the day. Grace received, by far, the most visitors, they usually didn't stay for longer than 10 or 15 minutes.  
  
It seemed as though everyone on the hospital staff now officially knew that Grace was Lucy Knight's daughter. Most of the people at County had at least heard of Lucy, and her tragic death. As with any good bit of juicy gossip, the staff had felt the need to investigate for themselves. It had started just the day before, but one of the pediatric nurses had said that she saw doctors and nurses creeping by the window into room 512 where Grace resided. They stayed for a few seconds, typically; glanced into the room, goggling as if the child were in a zoo; and whispering to one another, being gossipy as usual.  
  
Grace Knight was indeed a major topic of conversation and hospital gossip. People muttered constantly under their breaths, about where she came from, what she was like, where she would end up in the end. But most of all, they whispered about who her father was.  
  
They spoke constantly, debating about who it could be, talking as if every man in Chicago, let alone the entire United States, could potentially be the father.  
  
And Carter hated it.  
  
He hated how they spoke as if Lucy had been the med school slut between her shifts. It wasn't as if she had been the kind of person to sleep around either. She had, after all, had a steady relationship at the time. He hated how everyone was now going to remember her like this, rather than as the great medical student and caring person that she was. He hated, more than anything else, though, the strange, suspicious glances that people threw him constantly.  
  
And it was all because of the Exam 6 ordeal.  
  
They all seemed to forget, though, that Lucy had been involved with what Carter understood to be a serious relationship with Dale, the surgical resident.  
  
Dale had never specified whether he and Lucy had slept together. Carter harbored a suspicion that they hadn't, but he was never quite certain.  
  
And he never could be.  
  
Carter heard the wind rushing and the sound of the train coming down the tracks, slowing to a stop. The doors whooshed open, and Carter stepped onto the train, taking a seat before the vehicle began to move again. The doors closed, and they lurched forward.  
  
He looked around the train for a moment. It was nearly barren, save for a small cluster of Japanese men, an elderly couple and a mother with her three children. Carter turned his head, resting it on the cool glass of the window as he looked out into the sunset. The El picked up speed. Carter closed his eyes for a moment.  
  
He still wondered whether she had told him that she was pregnant. He suspected that she hadn't, because had that been the case, the small child wouldn't have journeyed to find her father. Instead, Carter thought, Dale would have claimed custody of the child and raised her as her father.  
  
Obviously, that had not happened.  
  
As Carter gazed out of the window at the moving scenery, he remembered a conversation that he had had with Lucy on the roof of County General. Of course, they'd had several chats,, but he remembered all of them, especially this particular one.  
  
It had been after an elderly man tried to shoot and kill his wife. Lucy had discovered the gunshot wound, others having mistaken it for a bedsore. Carter and Lucy had sat up on the roof that night, sharing a cup of coffee. They had been talking about the elderly couple's marriage, the subject soon turning to marriage in general.  
  
"I never thought much on getting married," she had told him. "I think my problem is that because I was raised by such a strong, capable single mom that I don't really see the need for a partner at all."  
  
Her voice still echoed, slightly dimmed, in his head. He remembered telling her that he would eventually like to have a lasting relationship, if he could find that special someone.  
  
That certainly never happened. Nobody after Lucy had worked out, though Abby came a close match.  
  
As the train slowed to a stop at Carter's stop, he stood, slinging his leather bag over his shoulder and stepping off of the train. He paused a moment to breathe, turning his head, before starting down the platform and descending the stairs to the street.  
  
It was dusk now. The sun had set just enough that the sky wasn't completely dark, but there were certain areas on the street that were dark, because of shadows cast by buildings. He had five blocks to walk, but he didn't care. He adjusted the strap of his bag over his shoulder and continued down the sidewalk.  
  
He couldn't recall exactly why his relationship with Abby hadn't worked out. The two of them had been great friends before they were lovers. That was the best thing two people in a relationship could hope for. He had trusted her, still did, actually.  
  
Carter was grateful to her for helping him through the aftermath of the attack, guiding him through drug rehab and becoming his AA sponsor. He had confided in her, and still did, for many things. Abby had only wanted to help him, to keep him from more pain. That was evident the day that Paul Sobriki came back to the ER at County over two years after the attack.  
  
Abby had recognized him right away, had asked to put him into hard restraints. Susan had felt it extreme, but she hadn't known. How could she have known? Abby had tried to stall for time, tried to keep Carter away from him. But it had happened anyway, the inevitable meeting.  
  
Carter was sickened by the thought of speaking with that man, trying to be civil. He wanted to shout, wanted to knock the no-good son of a out of his gurney and straight onto the floor. But Sobriki had been lucid, had seemed to be nonviolent at the time, giving Carter no reason at all to hurt him.  
  
So Carter had stood there, in front of the man who made his life a living Hell for so long, the man who killed Lucy, took a mother from her child forever, and all he could do was move his mouth soundlessly and hope to get away as soon as possible. And he had gone, as if in a trance, down the hallway to the restroom, and he had vomited.  
  
Carter walked on, shaking his head briefly, still in thought. It was ironic, really, how things worked out. Paul Sobriki, who had slaughtered one and brutally attacked another, was now on release, probably out by now. He was married to a nice woman and they had a daughter.  
  
Sobriki was living a normal, happy life. Carter, on the other hand, had been robbed of one of the best friends and most wonderful women he'd ever met, as well as stabbed and traumatized himself. He had been driven to drugs, and all because he had tried to help a patient; to do his job.  
  
What a wonderful world. Whoever had said "what goes around, comes around," was certainly mislead.  
  
Carter stepped under the light of a street lamp, into its yellow glow. The night was cool, as it should be, being autumn. Winter was fast approaching, he could feel it in the breeze. He stepped into the darkness again. He had only three blocks left to walk to his apartment building, and he walked quickly.  
  
His footsteps pattered on the concrete of the sidewalk. He walked on a normal city road, the sound of his shoes hitting the pavement seemed to be echoing more than was normal. As he turned the corner onto Santa Anita road, a force knocked him off of his feet.  
  
Carter's bag was yanked forcefully out of his grip, and a pair of rough hands grabbed the collar of his coat, forcing him face-first into the brick side of a building. Carter pressed his cheek against the wall, trying not to speak out or make any sudden moves. He couldn't tell if his attacker had a weapon or not, and he didn't want to risk any serious injury. His face was pressed harder into the wall, a foot pressed on his lower back.  
  
"Think about screaming for help," said a gruff, muffled voice, "And you're dead where you stand. Kapishe?"  
  
Carter tried to swallow, and almost choked on his tongue. He finally gathered his breath enough to speak.  
  
"Clear," he confirmed to the man. He kept his voice as low as he could.  
  
"Good, and no ratting to the police," came a different voice. This one sounded as if the man speaking was speaking nasally, and was slightly more high-pitched. Carter heard a muffled thud and a gasp of pain; presumably, the first man had kicked the second one.  
  
Carter felt a sudden pang of pain in his back, reminiscent of the stab wound he had received years ago. That was still a rough pressure point for him, and the pain at that moment made him want to collapse. He gasped as quietly as he could, which was difficult.  
  
"What?" he heard the second man mock him. "Are we hurting you?" Carter bit his tongue and didn't answer.  
  
"C'mon, let's do this. Maybe he'll have enough cash on him for a decent bit of meth."  
  
"I'll check his bag."  
  
"You," the first man said to Carter. "Turn out your pockets."  
  
Carter still had his face against the wall, but his hands were free then to move toward his pockets. He turned them out slowly. He heard coins clinking on the sidewalk of the poorly lit alley as the change from his lunch in the cafeteria fell out of the pocket. Out of the other came fluttering two bits of paper: a receipt from something Carter couldn't remember, and a thank-you note from a patient, scrawled with pen on a napkin. Carter felt the man's grip on him loosen as he bent down to pick the things up.  
  
Carter thought about running right then, when the guard was down. He guessed that the other man was maybe 15 or 20 feet from him, going through his bag. He could hit the first guy and bolt before the other knew what was even going on. But he didn't know if either of the men had a gun, and he didn't want to risk being shot. He decided not to do anything stupid.  
  
"There's nothing useful in here, all this guy has is 25 bucks," the second man said, his footsteps approaching nearer to his accomplice. "There's no credit cards, nothing. There's one key, no car keys..."  
  
"Well duh, if the guy had a car, he wouldn't be wandering out here at night, would he?" The first man straightened up and regained his strong hold on Carter, shoving him further into the wall. Carter's jaw was pressing on the cool, rough bricks. Carter heard the other man dumping out his bag.  
  
"Hey..." the man trailed off.  
  
"What?"  
  
"This guy's a doctor!" The first man gave a hollow laugh.  
  
"A doctor?" He grabbed the scruff of Carter's shirt and turned him around violently, pinning his back against the wall.  
  
Carter could see his surroundings well, his eyes having grown accustomed to the darkness. His assailants both wore dark clothes, and ski masks. So cliché, he thought to himself. The man who had him pinned to the wall was of average height, perhaps an inch shorter than himself. The other man, the accomplice, crouched over Carter's bag, contents now spilled onto the ground. Carter saw that the man held his hospital ID tag in his hand, and both men were looking at him, expecting a response. He took a breath.  
  
"Yes, I'm in emergency medicine," Carter choked out, trying not to lose his cool.  
  
"And you got no cash?"  
  
"Not on me, but--" Carter began, but was cut off by the first assailant roughly letting go of his shirt  
  
"This is wack," said the second man. The first man stepped back a bit. Both men were still looking at Carter, as if trying to decide what to do with him.  
  
"Let's get outta here," the first man said, turning to the other. "This is a waste of time." Carter let out an almost-audible sigh of relief. Instead of turning and leaving, however, the two looked at each other, and one of them picked something up. Carter couldn't exactly tell in the dim light of the alleyway, but the object was large and heavy-looking. The man approached Carter, the other one standing to make sure that Carter didn't get away somehow.  
  
"Sorry, doc," the man said, in a mocking tone of voice. "We gotta make sure you don't talk, rat us out." He moved forward with the weapon.  
  
Carter inhaled sharply, opening his mouth. He wanted to try to reason with the man, but by the time he had drawn breath, it was too late for that. The man stepped up to him and swung his arms.  
  
Carter was blown back by a force that carried him to the ground. His head throbbed, his chest thudded as his body hit the cold concrete of the sidewalk. He knew nothing of his assailants, of the world, of life, as his world faded to blackness.  
  
************  
  
"...Large bore IV, hook up some saline, get a banana bag, run a CBC, type and cross for two--"  
  
"You want lytes?"  
  
"Yeah, and get X-ray down here now."  
  
"Call and set him up for a CT."  
  
"Saline's up."  
  
"How are his sats?"  
  
"At 88 on 75% oxygen."  
  
"You want to intubate?"  
  
"No, crank up the O2 to 100%, he doesn't need a tube."  
  
"You sure?"  
  
"We aren't tubing him, dammit! Just crank up the O2."  
  
The sounds of the chaos of a hospital flooded Carter's head as he began to come to. His head jerked involuntarily to the side and his eyes snapped open. Almost at once the voices of the doctors and nurses in the room ceased, Carter felt eyes on him. He blinked uncertainly in the bright light of the trauma room.  
  
"Carter, can you hear me?" Carter's eyes flashed over to the familiar face of Susan Lewis standing over him, a concerned expression on her face.  
  
"Susan?" he asked uncertainly. She nodded.  
  
"John, do you remember what happened to you?" As she asked this, more images began to swim into his vision. He saw that both Gallant and Neela were in the room, as well as Chuny and Sam. All of them wore expressions of worry for him, the nurses bustling around, constantly taking his blod pressure, reading the beeping monitors.  
  
"My head," was all that Carter could manage to say. Susan nodded.  
  
"Yeah, you were hit pretty hard, blow to the temporal bone, looks like a fracture along the squamous suture. That looks like the only thing, really. Did you see the guys that hit you?" Susan asked all of this kindly, but with a sort of urgency in her voice. Carter's eyes rolled back into his head and he relaxed his muscles, trying to ignore the painful throbbing in his head.  
  
"I dunno," he said, feeling in too much pain to answer.  
  
"Get him 200 of fentanol," Gallant said. Carter closed his eyes tightly.  
  
"No," he said weakly, trying to infuse every bit of assertiveness he could into his voice. "No narcotics."  
  
"But--" Gallant began, but Susan silenced him with a wave of her hand and Carter saw her give him a look.  
  
"Aspirin, then," she said to Sam, who filled out the chart.  
  
"X-ray's here," said Chuny, donning an X-ray-blocking apron and passing them out to the others in the room. Carter felt the heavy apron being laid over his waist. The X-rays were taken of his head, and sent to be developed.  
  
"Dr. Lewis, he can go up to CT now, they are ready for him."  
  
"Great," she said. She turned to Carter. "We need to take you up to CT to make sure that you don't have an intracranial bleed from the force of the impact. After that, we'll see. You should probably be fine down here, it depends on what the tests show."  
  
"Dr. Lewis, there's an officer outside who wants to talk to him."  
  
"Handle it, Neela, we're taking him up to CT now," Susan said as she folded up the rails on the gurney and he was prepped for transfer. Susan, Gallant and Chuny went with him to CT. When they got up to the room, Susan grabbed a syringe. She swabbed his upper arm with sterile alcohol, and prepared to inject the medication. Carter groaned in protest.  
  
"It's just versed to relax you a bit," Susan reassured him. Carter nodded.  
  
"Okay," he said. "See you when I wake up, I guess." She smiled at him.  
  
"Of course," she said. "We can talk more later." With that, she injected the contents of the syringe. Almost immediately, the whiteness of the room faded to black, and he was out.  
  
He wasn't sure how much later it was that he woke up. It was still dark outside of the window in the room, and he couldn't see a clock, as his watch had been removed and probably kept in a patient belongings bag. He heard a faint, steady beeping and knew that he was still on a monitor, from the looks of it, in the Intensive Care Unit. His room held another bed, but it was vacant.  
  
All too suddenly, Carter became aware of the throbbing pain inside of his skull. He squeezed his eyes shut, almost pressing his head further into the pillow, trying to will away the pain. He was almost sorry that he had requested no narcotic painkillers; this headache seemed to be eating the aspirin and Tylenol he received for breakfast. He knew, though, that in the long run, it was for the best. He didn't want to end up back in Atlanta, at the AA meetings, or worse, in the room next to his cousin's.  
  
Blinking, he caught sight of a face, most likely a nurse, peeking in on him through a window. Carter had the sudden desire to pull the blinds shut on that window, for privacy's sake, but decided against it. He closed his eyes and, groaning, tried to find a comfortable way to relieve the stabbing pressure in his head.  
  
Almost too soon after he closed his eyes to rest, Susan Lewis opened the door to the room to check up on him. She entered cautiously, wearing a small smile.  
  
"You're awake," she said, coming closer to his bedside. He tried to return her grin, managing only a tiny shadow of a smile.  
  
"I am now," he said, grunting softly against the pain.  
  
"How are you feeling, Carter?"  
  
"Well, considering that my skull's been smashed in by a couple of mugging thugs outside of my apartment building, and I haven't got the faintest clue how I even got back in here, I'm doing well for the circumstances." Susan nodded slowly, taking all of this into consideration.  
  
"Well, your skull hasn't been smashed, if it's any consolation. You do have a small, incomplete fracture in your left temporal lobe, and there's some trauma to the squamous suture of the skull, but you are going to be fine. The CT showed no subdural hemorrhage," she explained to him. Carter nodded slowly.  
  
"I'm glad that it was minimal, but this still hurts like hell." Susan sighed softly.  
  
"I wish that we could give you more for the pain, but since you denied the narcotics, there's not a lot that I can give you. You'll have to tough it out with the weak stuff." Carter nodded slowly, a bit disappointed. He knew that it was for the best.  
  
"How long am I in here for?"  
  
"A couple of days," she said. Carter groaned.  
  
"Days? I can't be in here for days! I have a shift tomorrow!" Susan gave him a laughing smile. "What?"  
  
"It is tomorrow, Carter," she snorted. Carter frowned.  
  
"What time is it?"  
  
"About 4:30 in the morning," she said, taking her penlight and stepping closer to his bedside. She checked his pupils quickly and shut off the light. "Your eyes look good."  
  
"Good. So did you find anything else wrong?"  
  
"Not really," said Susan, shaking her head. "You're going to have a pretty big bruise on your head where you were hit, and there are a couple of lacerations on your forehead and such from when you fell. That's all that we found, though." Carter nodded his head in response to this.  
  
"Okay," he said. He tried to sit up a little, but he felt blood rushing to his head, and the throbbing pain, which he had forgotten about for a little while, returned. Susan helped to steady him, and he laid back down.  
  
"Hold on, you have to take it easy for a while. No sudden, drastic movements or you'll get thrown off balance." She took a hard look at him, and pulled up a chair by the bedside, sitting down. "The temporal bone is so thin, it's a good thing hat it didn't shatter at that impact. You were lucky, Carter."  
  
"I know," he said, looking around the room, anywhere but at his friend. He had heard those words before, while in a hospital. "So where am I, exactly?"  
  
"You're up in medicine, you'll be fine, off the monitors, hopefully, by noon. After that, it's all about observation. You should be okay, though, I wouldn't worry too much." Carter nodded. It was good news, overall.  
  
"How did I get here?" Susan exhaled quickly.  
  
"That's a different story," she said.  
  
"I'd like to hear it."  
  
"Okay, okay," she continued. "A couple of teenage girls found you. One of them said she recognized you from the hospital. They called the police and the medics, and you were brought here. It was kind of scary, having to work on you. Gallant was pretty nervous, he didn't want to screw anything up. The girls stuck around with you until the ambulance came, the police made them give their names, and they were free to go." She looked at Carter. "That's the story. Anything else you want to know?" Carter shook his head.  
  
"Nope, that's all." He said. He looked up at her. "Thanks, Susan."  
  
"No problem. It is my job, after all."  
  
"When are you off?"  
  
"Off at six, I'll probably come back and check up on you before I go home, though." Carter shook his head.  
  
"You don't have to do that."  
  
"But I want to. You'll probably be asleep anyway." Carter gave a shallow laugh.  
  
"I hope so, anything to get rid of this killer headache." Susan laughed.  
  
"Alright, I'm leaving. Sleep well, Carter." She stood up and she turned to leave, throwing him a small smile before she turned and walked out of the room.  
  
Carter watched her walk out the door, as much as he could from a hospital bed. With nothing to take his mind off of it, the throbbing pain in his head returned. He lifted his arm and gingerly touched his left temple. A sudden, fiery pain shot through his skull, making him want to cry out in pain. He squeezed his eyes shut, immediately withdrawing his hand and letting it fall to his side.  
  
Wishing that the lights in the room were dimmer, he fell into an uncomfortable sleep.  
  
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So that's all for chapter 11!  
  
Sorry to all of my readers for the delay on this chapter. I have been away for the last two weeks, not getting home until 8:30 at night, then it's homework and bed, the same thing all over again the next day. Why, do you ask? I am really involved with my school's drama club, and I recently played Celia in the Shakespeare play As You Like It.  
  
Anyway, here's the chapter.  
  
Coming in Chapter 12...we are on the brink of a revelation (it's coming, I promise!)  
  
Toodles,  
  
Snapdragon 


	12. Dispo

DISCLAIMER: I can only dream of owning these characters, as they belong to NBC and the WB and whoever else. The point is, that I don't own them, except for Grace. Anyone else that you don't recognize was created by me.  
  
Okay, so here's chapter 12. This isn't how I planned to write this chapter, it just happened. The next chapter should be the climax of the whole thing, but we'll see how it goes. When you have a pen and paper, you never know what ideas will pop into your brain.  
  
Read and enjoy!  
  
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SAVING GRACE-- CHAPTER 12  
  
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Carter spent a total of three days as a patient in Cook County General. He was transferred out of the ICU and observation areas and into recovery by the end of the first day. He was glad that he didn't have to spend more time than that as a critical patient.  
  
The time that went by during those days in the hospital, though it went by slowly, was not totally dull and monotonous. Several people came to visit him, all of them people from the hospital. Since he knew pretty much everyone who worked there, quite a few people came by his room from hour to hour to offer their get-well greetings.  
  
Later in the first day, Susan came in to her shift an hour early so that she could keep him company. The two of them talked about absolutely nothing, laughing over stupid things, little nothings. Carter knew that she sensed that this was the best sort of thing to chat about after an ordeal such as the one that he had been through.  
  
After Susan started her shift then, Gallant came in and went over old patient follow-ups with him. Carter helped him to review the charts and go over possible diagnoses and courses of treatment. During the whole course of his visit, Carter got the feeling that Gallant was uncomfortable with seeing one of his superiors, a fellow doctor, lying almost defenseless in a hospital bed, needing care himself. He couldn't blame him. He had felt the same way when Dr. Benton had come down with appendicitis while he was on his surgical rotation years ago.  
  
Dr. Anspaugh had come down to offer his greetings, as had Neela. Several of the nurses had pitched in to get him some flowers from the gift shop, and they came on a break to deliver them personally. Of course, because the breaks were all at the same time, Kerry hadn't been too happy. Only 10 minutes without nurses, Carter knew, could lead to chaos.  
  
Abby came and talked with him, mostly sitting, for a change, in silence. It was strange, but since Abby had seen Carter in a hospital recovery room once before, she seemed to know that it could be comforting just to have her presence there. It was. It was nice just to have an understanding visitor, to chat with if desired, to sit in silence other times. She came to visit each day that he was there, and was a comfort each time.  
  
Kerry Weaver came in to tell him that he could take a leave after he was discharged from the hospital. He didn't have to come back to work right away; he did have enough personal days accrued to take some time off. Carter objected. He needed to keep his mind off of things; he needed to come to work. He told her that he would take those personal days off later, if the time came to use them.  
  
Kerry also told him that she had scheduled a meeting for him with Dr. Meyers, from the Psychiatric ward of the hospital. It was a formality, she said, just to make sure that the mugging wouldn't affect him in a major way. Great, Carter thought, another person who would think that he was a nut.  
  
Shortly after the first time that he woke up, a couple of cops came by to question him, poking and prodding, and grilling him, so that every bit of information that he could recall out of him. He knew that they wanted to find and catch the guys, but Carter hadn't really been feeling up to the questions, so he knew that he hadn't answered them well. He simply hadn't cared.  
  
On the third day, Grace came to visit him.  
  
It was early afternoon, around 2:00, after Carter had been moved into the medical recovery area of the hospital. He was feeling better, though the pain in his head wasn't a whole lot better. Grace's regular day nurse, Lorraine, knocked at his door.  
  
"Dr. Carter," she called uncertainly, "are you up for a visitor?"  
  
Truthfully, he hadn't been. He had wanted to go back to sleep, the Tylenol and aspirin were not working for the dully throbbing pains in his temporal lobe. Somehow, though, he had given the nurse a weak smile and wave of the hand.  
  
"Sure," he had said. The nurse had walked behind the door, propping it open. She wheeled a wheelchair into the room, and sure enough, Grace had been sitting inside of it.  
  
Carter had been shocked, to say the least, mostly at the fact that she had been allowed to leave her bed in her room. But there she was, sitting in the doorway of his own hospital room, still in her pink hospital gown, hair falling just past her shoulders, beaming at him.  
  
"Hi Doctor Carter," she greeted him. The nurse wheeled her to the side of his bed, and left to go talk to her friend Cynthia, another nurse on that floor of the hospital.  
  
"Hello, Miss Knight. How are you today?"  
  
"I am doing well, thank you. How are you?" Carter gave her a small smile, telling her a small lie.  
  
"I'm okay" he had said. "What brings you down to this floor of the hospital?"  
  
"Well," she began, dropping her chin for a moment, looking at her hands in her lap. "I heard that you had been hurt, and you came to visit me all that time that I was sick, so I thought I'd come to keep you company."  
  
"That is very thoughtful of you," Carter said. He couldn't believe the little girl's concern, was surprised by it. Grace reached into the side pocket on the wheelchair and pulled out a folded sheet of paper.  
  
"I made you a Get Well card," she said, sounding pleased with herself. She handed the card to Carter, who smiled and opened it. The front was decorated with a five-year-old's rendition of a rainbow, with flowers traced onto the scribbled green grass. The inside of the card contained the message Get Well Soon carefully printed in purple crayon. Carter smiled at the child. She returned the gesture.  
  
"Thank you, Grace," he said as he set the card on his bedside table. He turned back to her to find that her blue eyes were focused on the bandage that covered his head injury. A look of quiet horror filled her eyes. She saw that he was watching her for her reaction, and she turned her head quickly, only to look back a second later. "It's not as bad as it looks," Carter told her, in the most comforting voice he could manage. She nodded mechanically, as if she hadn't really heard his words.  
  
"Does it hurt much?" she asked in a very small voice. Carter pressed his lips together slightly, shaking his head slowly.  
  
"No," he told her, trying to be convincing. "The other doctors are giving me medicine so that it won't hurt." Grace nodded, believing him. She sat quietly for a moment, hands folded in her lap. She looked up at him.  
  
"It's weird to see a doctor sick in the hospital," she said, more to herself than anything. Carter gave a small smile.  
  
"That's what I used to think, too."  
  
"Have you ever been in the hospital before?" Carter took in a slow breath through his nose, not wanting to answer the child's innocent question.  
  
His mind did a terrible flashback, to the night of the stabbing, Valentine's Day. He was falling, calling for help, the music was blaring. He knew he would never forget the song that was playing as he fell to the ground, felt the cold floor against his cheek, watched Lucy struggle to breathe, covered in her own blood. Then he lay awake, disoriented, on the table in the trauma room, turning his head to see Benton using the Melker kit to trach Lucy. It had all seemed so unreal, yet he could not erase the reality. He nodded slowly.  
  
"Yeah," he said. "I have been in the hospital before." Grace's eyes grew slightly wider.  
  
"Why?" she asked. Carter massaged his forehead with his hand, closing his eyes for a brief moment.  
  
"I had a problem with my back, I needed surgery." It wasn't a total lie, Carter had thought, he just hadn't specified how the back problem had gotten there in the first place, and the little girl hadn't asked. She had simply nodded.  
  
He needed to change the subject.  
  
"So," he began, in a lighter tone of voice. "How are things back up in room 512?" Grace shrugged.  
  
"It's okay. It is sort of boring a lot of times," she answered.  
  
"How's Amanda?"  
  
"She left yesterday. Her mom took her home, she was well enough to go," she spoke these words with a tinge of regret; she obviously hadn't wanted her newfound friend to leave. Carter nodded. "The nurse said that she could finish recuperating at home. What does recuperate mean?" she asked him.  
  
"It means to get better."  
  
"Oh," she said, registering the meaning in her mind.  
  
"Are you still getting other visitors in the hospital?" Grace smiled and nodded.  
  
"Yeah, Abby comes to play games with me when she is on her break. She says that it is a nice change from the ER. She smuggles in games from the playroom. She's the one who told me that you were hurt."  
  
"She told you that?"  
  
"Yep," Grace said, shifting in her seat. "She came up yesterday to play checkers, and she told me that you were hit in the head and in the hospital." Carter opened his mouth to say something more, but Grace cut him off. "I asked why you didn't come to see me, and she told me, don't be mad at her."  
  
"I couldn't be mad at her anyway," he said, looking out the window.  
  
"Good, she's really nice, I like her a lot, almost as much as I like you," she said with the honesty of a child. Carter found a small smile had formed on his lips.  
  
"That's very nice of you, Grace," Carter said, still smiling at her. She smiled back at him.  
  
"You're welcome," she said. The gaze of her eyes drifted once again to the dressing on his head. She leaned down and retrieved, from the pocket of the wheelchair, a deck of cards. Carter let out a laugh.  
  
"Where did you get those?" he asked her. She grinned mischievously.  
  
"The playroom," she said simply. "I'll give them back later," she reassured him.  
  
"Okay," Carter said, eyeing her in a playfully suspicious way. She giggled, her eyes dancing. Carter caught his breath. She sounded so much like Lucy.  
  
"Do you want to play?" she asked. Carter smiled.  
  
"I would love to," he answered, unfolding the lap table from his bed. Grace took the rubber band off of the card deck, and gave them to Carter to shuffle.  
  
"You can do it, I'm not very good," she said. Carter took the cards and shuffled them, letting them slide between his fingers. He had to thank the child one day for her kindness.  
  
"What do you want to play?" he asked her. She shook her head.  
  
"You pick."  
  
"Okay," Carter said, smiling. "Corkscrew it is."  
  
After a few games of cards, the nurse came back to retrieve Grace, wheeling her back up to the Pedes ward to her room. Carter had been left twiddling his thumbs, bored once again. He had a few more visitors, Abby had stopped by, and Gallant and Pratt. What had surprised him, though, was when Elizabeth Corday came to visit late that afternoon, before Carter was discharged from the hospital.  
  
Carter had been watching a terrible soap opera on television, and she had knocked on the door, pushing it open. Carter turned in surprise.  
  
"Hello Dr. Corday," he greeted her.  
  
"John," she said much less formally. "How are you feeling?" Carter gave a soft laugh.  
  
"I'm fine, just fine. I think I'm ready to go home now, actually," he answered. She came into the room, pulling up a chair at his bedside, and noticing that the television was turned on.  
  
"What on earth is this garbage that you are watching?" she asked, a look of disgust on her face.  
  
"It's a soap opera, it's called General Hospital," Carter said, a playful smile on his lips. He watched, amused, as Elizabeth stared at the screen, seeming revolted by what she saw.  
  
"That is so fake," she said. She watched for a moment, making the occasional commentaries of 'Nobody wears scrubs that tight,' and 'The ER is never that quiet all the time,' and 'you can't give potassium to a patient in that condition, it would throw off the electrolyte balance!' Carter was left smiling at her comments, with which he agreed wholeheartedly. Finally, she got sick of the whole thing and simply turned off the television.  
  
"Hey," Carter said, feigning disappointment. "Why'd you do that?" Elizabeth shot him a look.  
  
"How can anybody watch that garbage? It must just be this country..." she trailed off.  
  
"Hey, you can't talk. All of you Brits are obsessed with that show Big Brother." Carter gave her a playful stare of accusation. Elizabeth snorted with light laughter.  
  
"Alright, alright, I admit it. I used to watch Big Brother," she confessed, causing Carter to laugh. She laughed along with him, but the laughter soon subsided. She fixed him with a look, her eyes boring into his, trying to see something in them.  
  
"What?" Carter asked, a bit apprehensively. Elizabeth intensified the gaze, searching his eyes as if she were searching the depths of his soul.  
  
"Are you okay? I mean, really okay? Because you don't seem that well to me." Carter rolled his eyes at her, trying to convince her that he was truly okay. This wouldn't have been so difficult, except for the fact that he wasn't so sure about his own well-being. He decided in an instant that he didn't need to be pitied or anything else from anybody else.  
  
"I will be just fine, don't worry about me," he said, resolutely, to Elizabeth. She fell silent for a moment, taking in what he had told her, and trying to decide for herself whether Carter really meant what he had said. She accepted it. The two of them sat in silence, and Elizabeth's gaze wandered around the room, falling on the Get Well card that Grace had drawn for Carter. A faint smile crossed her lips. Seeing what she was looking at, Carter followed the gaze. He plucked the card from the bedside table and held it gently in his hand, as if it were made of delicate glass.  
  
"Who made that for you?" Elizabeth asked him, taking the card from him and reading it.  
  
"One of my patients, the young Miss Knight." Elizabeth nodded, handing the paper back to Carter.  
  
"She is a sweet girl, isn't she?"  
  
"Yes, she is," he said. "She told me that you came to visit her." Elizabeth smiled.  
  
"Yes, I went by after one of my appys in the morning to visit, to see how she was doing. We talked a little, I told her who I was, I braided her hair for her," she said. "I told her that I had a daughter named Ella, and she asked about her." Elizabeth broke off, sighing.  
  
"What?" Carter asked. Elizabeth shook her head, closing her eyes for a moment.  
  
"She is so much like Lucy, John, it's startling." Carter nodded.  
  
"I know, it's--" he took a breath, "--it's unbelievable."  
  
"I know." Elizabeth sat there a little while longer, when the current nurse, Sherri Nix, opened the door. She had his charts in her hands, and was smiling.  
  
"Hey, Sherri, what's up?" Carter asked. He turned his head in her direction, as Elizabeth stood from her chair and met the nurse near the door.  
  
"May I?" she asked the nurse, motioning at Carter's charts. Sherri nodded, and Elizabeth took over the clipboard.  
  
"Dr. Carter, you can be discharged now, if you like. You need to see a nurse about taking out that IV, and we will give you some strong aspirin and Tylenol for the pain and some clean dressings for the wound first, of course, but after that, you'd be free to go," the nurse told him kindly, smiling at him. Elizabeth smiled too, looking up from the chart.  
  
"Everything looks great," she said reassuringly. Carter nodded.  
  
"Dr. Bose will want to see you in a week, and again in a month, but making an appointment with him shouldn't be a problem at all," Sherri said, taking the chart back from Elizabeth and jotting something down.  
  
"Could I go now?"  
  
"Of course, whenever you're ready. I am going to run and grab you the bandages and the medication, and I'll be back to take out your IV and get a doctor to sign off on your dispo." With that, she was out the door again. Elizabeth came forward.  
  
"All right, then," she said. "I guess you'll want to get out of here soon, then? Like, now?" Carter laughed and nodded.  
  
"Yes, as soon as I can. I have a shift tomorrow; I want to get a decent amount of sleep." Elizabeth looked at him incredulously.  
  
"You can't possibly want to go back to work? You need to rest. Besides, that nurse had on your chart that you were to get a decent amount of bed rest, three days, in fact," she told him matter-of-factly. Carter's mouth dropped open in shock.  
  
"Three days? I can't stay out for three days, I've already been out for that long," he argued, but Elizabeth was giving him a look, and he recognized defeat. He sighed, fought down. "Fine, okay, I'll go home like a good boy, and take my medicine, and get plenty of rest, and if I have any more problems, I will come back immediately," he said, in a mocking tone. The nurse came back into the room then, clutching a small package which contained, Carter suspected, his medication and bandages. He learned later that he was correct.  
  
"Okay, Dr. Carter," she said, sitting down near his bed and giving him the supplies. "When I take this IV out and you are released, I want you to go straight home-- no driving, though-- and get some rest. Come back--"  
  
"--Immediately if I feel any pain, call right away, take my meds, change the bandage, get some rest, yes, yes, I know the routine," Carter finished, looking at the nurse. She gave him a scrutinizing look, as if deciding whether he was ready to be released after all. She scooted her chair forward and snapped on a clean pair of latex gloves.  
  
"Alright, Doctor," she said. "I expect you know how this goes?" Carter nodded.  
  
"Let's go, the sooner, the better." Carter breathed in as the nurse slid the bore needle of the IV from the vein in his forearm. Throwing out the needle, she unwrapped a band-aid and stuck it on the site where the needle had previously been. Carter exhaled. He was free. He smiled.  
  
"Okay," he said, looking from Elizabeth to Sherri. "Could I have some space to change my clothes, please?"  
  
"Of course," Elizabeth said, moving toward the door. "Good luck, Carter."  
  
"See you around, Dr. Carter," Sherri smiled as she made her way out of the room, Elizabeth following at her heels. She threw one last glance over her shoulder, smiling reassuringly at Carter. He returned the smile, rising from the bed that he had used for the last couple of days and grabbing his patient belongings bag from near the bed. He changed his clothes, dressing, and gathered his bag. Slinging it over his shoulder, he stuffed the small package of medicine into it, and pushed the door open, leaving the hospital.  
  
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There you are! The next chapter in the Saving Grace series. I want to apologize for any confusion with the characters, and I will try to be as consistent as I can in the people that I put into the storyline.  
  
Keep those reviews coming!  
  
Ta-ta for now,  
  
Snapdragon 


	13. The Letter

DISCLAIMER: I own them all, every last one of them. MY characters, I mean my original characters. By no means do I own the cast of ER, if I did I wouldn't be writing fan fiction.  
  
Sorry the chapter took so long...hopefully it will be worth it.  
  
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CHAPTER 13- The Letter  
  
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"Hey, Carter, welcome back."  
  
"Yeah, welcome back."  
  
"Are you feeling better?"  
  
"How was your time off?"  
  
"It was deathly boring," Carter answered Susan, who had asked the last question. As he had walked through the front doors back into County's ER at 8:30 in the morning, the staff had greeted him with welcoming acclamations. Everyone wanted to know how he was feeling, and how he was doing. It was really very annoying to Carter; he just wanted to move on with his life. It wasn't as if it had been a highly traumatizing event in his life.  
  
God knew that he had experienced worse things. Much worse.  
  
He stood there in the Chairs area of the ER, and listened to the noise and bustling of the doctors, complaints of the patients, and the carping of their families. Carter was genuinely glad to be back. He made his way through the chaos and to the lounge area, where he changed into his white coat. Stowing his things in his locker like he had done so many hundreds of times before, he turned and left the area to tackle the day.  
  
In the Admit area, Carter found Luka running the board, his usual surly look about him. He was glancing over a piece of paper, a letter, wearing a blank expression on his face. He glanced up quickly and, spotting Carter, got up from his seat, smiling.  
  
"Hey Carter," he said, "welcome back. How are you feeling?" Carter shrugged.  
  
"I'm doing fine, still a little pain, but I'll get over it," he answered. He turned his attention on the letter in Luka's hand. "What's the letter?"  
  
"Oh, that," Luka said. He folded the letter and slid it back into its envelope, tucking it into the pocked of his white coat. "I'm going to go back to Africa." Carter raised his eyebrows.  
  
"Really?" he said, nodding his head slowly. "Where are you going?"  
  
"Back to Kisangani, I'm leaving at the end of the week," Luka told him. He gave Carter a more serious look. "You should really think about going back." Carter had wanted to go back to Africa. He didn't quite know why, but something about it made him want to go back, even if it did mean risking his life through the civil wars going on there.  
  
"I was thinking about it," Carter responded after a short pause. "I just need to find a time to do it." Luka nodded, understanding.  
  
"That can be tough," he agreed. "Especially working in a place like this. I think that Weaver is on the warpath against me right now for it." Carter couldn't help but laugh.  
  
"When is Weaver not on the warpath against somebody? Right now, it just happens to be you," he said, as Luka snorted. A familiar sound made them look up to find Weaver walking toward them, cane clicking aginst the floor as she came. She wore an expression of annoyance on her face as she approached the two of them.  
  
"Speak of the devil," Luka muttered under his breath as Kerry approached them, a stern look on her face.  
  
"Hey, this hospital is not paying you to sit around and chat, there are patients to see. Let's focus on patient care, not gossip, leave that for the nurses," she said, free hand on her hip. The two doctors nodded, mostly to prevent Kerry from exploding even further. They stood up, and Luka wrote something on the board. Carter turned to grab one of the triage patients, but Kerry stopped him. "Carter, could I speak with you for a moment?" Carter turned back.  
  
"Sure, Dr. Weaver," he answered, as Kerry gestured toward a more empty part of the ER where they wouldn't be easily overheard. They stopped, and Weaver turned toward him.  
  
"I got a phone call today concerning the young Miss Knight, your Pedes patient," she said, as if clarification was necessary. Carter nodded apprehensively.  
  
"SCCS?" he asked. Kerry nodded. "And?"  
  
"And they are sending a representative over on October 4th to come and retrieve her, and take her back to Ohio." Carter was silent. That was only two weeks in the hospital. He had wanted Grace to stay there longer, she was his closest reminder of Lucy, and he knew that he would miss her once she was gone. Rationally, though, it was nearing time for her to be discharged. She couldn't stay there in the hospital forever. He nodded.  
  
"Okay," Carter said, blowing a gust of air out of his mouth. "Well, today's the first of the month, so we should tell her." Kerry nodded.  
  
"Do you want to do it?"  
  
"Yeah," Carter said, nodding. "Yeah, let me tell her." There was a short pause. "She's gonna need to go to physical therapy, she needs to learn how to use crutches."  
  
"Oh, right, the broken leg," Kerry said. She nodded. "I can call and see when they can get her in for that. Anything else?"  
  
"No, I don't think so," Carter said, thinking back. "I know that she is still having a little bit of trouble standing up on her own, and her abdomen still gives her pain sometimes, but we can give her painkillers for that."  
  
"Okay," Kerry nodded. She looked over her shoulder at the chaos of the ER, then turned back to Carter. "Well, I'll give you more information on the time and place to meet the representative, the man on the phone said something about some things he needed to get to you."  
  
"Yeah," Carter said, scratching his nose. "Apparently, Barbara Knight left some things for me after she died, They are bringing them to me." Kerry gave him a sympathetic look.  
  
"Oh," she said. There was a short pause, then she spoke again. "SCCS also said something about a package in the mail for you, wanted to know if you had gotten it yet. John, is this something I should be concerned about?" Carter shook his head.  
  
"No, it shouldn't be," he said, trying to convey assurance in his voice. In the back of his mind, though, Kerry had raised a new issue. What if this package, its contents, really was something he should be worried about. He crushed the possibility. Barbara Knight probably just wanted him to have an article that had belonged to Lucy, like a photograph or card or something. He brushed it out of his mind.  
  
"Okay," Kerry said, nodding. She glanced around the ER. Carter followed her gaze. They caught Chuny's eyes.  
  
"Hey, we're gonna need one of you," she said, calling from the admit desk. "We have a 34 year old male coming in, fell off of a balcony."  
  
"ETA?"  
  
"Three minutes."  
  
"Okay, thanks Chuny," Kerry said. She rubbed her forehead. "Carter, try not to get too caught up with this patient. I know she means something to you, and to a few other staff members here, but don't get too attached to her. She'll be gone soon." Carter sighed.  
  
"I know, I know," he said, groaning. "You don't have to tell me that, Kerry." She gave him a skeptical look.  
  
"I think I do," she said. She glanced over her shoulder and, after giving Carter one last look, she went off to grab a trauma gown and wait for the ambulance.  
  
Carter stood, still taking in what Kerry had told him, letting the full effects of the words hit him. He knew he shouldn't be getting attached, as Kerry put it, to Grace, but he couldn't help it. She was Lucy's child, after all, and in a way, being around the child helped him to cope with the guilt that still lingered with him, even after the years had gone by. The little girl was a comfort, and a sweet child, and he would miss her when she went back to her foster parents in Ohio. Carter looked down at his hands, and let out his breath. Hearing the chaos of the ER, he looked up.  
  
"Carter, this is a tough one. Could you give us a hand?" Kerry shouted to him. Carter's head jerked over at her, and, grabbing a trauma gown and gloves, he dashed over to the gurney.  
  
"Give me the bullet," he said, quickly surveying the man's injuries visually as the paramedic rattled of the patient's stats.  
  
**********************  
  
Carter had been told earlier that Grace was scheduled for physical therapy at 1:00 sharp, so Carter arrived at her room at 12:50 so that he could take her down to the session. He walked down the hall of the Pedes floor as he had so many times in the last week, and pushed open the door of the child's room.  
  
"You're back!" Grace said happily, smiling ear-to-ear. Her bed was propped into a sitting position, and the remnants of her lunch tray still sat on her lap table, waiting for the nurse to collect them. Carter couldn't help but smile with her.  
  
"Yep, I'm here," he said, grabbing her chart from the counter of the room and pulling up a chair to sit at the child's bedside. She gave him a hug.  
  
"I missed you, I was afraid that you weren't coming back." She looked at Carter and gave him a look of portending fear, like she would be scared if he left her again.  
  
"I missed you too, kiddo," Carter said, smiling at her. "How are you feeling?"  
  
"Better. Did you come to take me to my therapy?" Carter nodded, glancing around the room. His eye caught onto a bunch of Get Well Soon balloons and a small stuffed dog on the girl's bedside table.  
  
"Who sent you those?" he asked, gesturing his head in the direction of the balloons. Grace looked at them.  
  
"The Thompsons did. Aren't they nice? I was happy to get something like that from somebody."  
  
"Your foster family?"  
  
"Yep," she said, nodding. Carter looked at her, and took a short breath.  
  
"Well, I have some good news for you, Miss Knight," he began. The child was listening intently.  
  
"What is it?"  
  
"The Summit County Child's Services office called from Ohio this morning," he began, using a steady voice. "Someone is going to come on October 4th to take you back home." Grace nodded slowly, as if trying to decide how she felt about the whole thing.  
  
"Oh," she said. "How long am I gonna have here?"  
  
"Three days." She nodded.  
  
"Okay." There was a short pause. Carter glanced at his watch. He had four minutes to get Grace up to the eighth floor for physical therapy.  
  
"Uh, oh," He said, standing up. "We are going to be late for your therapy session."  
  
"Are you taking me?"  
  
"Yes I am," he said, bringing the wheelchair to her bed and helping her into it. He wheeled her out the door. He checked to see that no nurses were around, then he smiled at Grace. "Okay," he said. "We are going to make a dash for the elevator. Are you ready?"  
  
"Okay," she said, holding on tight, a playful look on her face. Carter leaned forward and ran forward, pushing the wheelchair in front of him. He heard Grace laughing, as he ran down the long hallway to the elevator. Approaching their destination, he slowed to a walk, hitting the button for the elevator. "That was fun," she said, still giggling.  
  
"Yeah, it was," Carter agreed, smiling, as he pushed the wheelchair into the elevator.  
  
After he had delivered the child safely to the therapist, Carter arranged for a nurse to pick her up after the hour was finished, and went back down to the ER. He wandered over to the Admitting Desk, and checked out the board. There was a moderate number of patients, three of which were his. Kerry had ended up taking the man who fell off of the balcony; it turned out that he had been drunk and incontinent.  
  
Making rounds again to visit a man with chest pain, a woman with PID and a teenager who was bitten by his pet snake, as well as treating a college student with food poisoning, he returned to the desk to fill out his patient charts. He met Abby at the desk, sitting doing notes and eating a bagel. She glanced sideways at him as he sat down on a stool.  
  
"Hey, Carter," she said, "How are you doing?"  
  
"I'm just fine, thank you," he answered, "and yourself?"  
  
"How was your time off?" she asked him, ignoring his question completely. She turned and gave him a look, eyebrows slightly raised, expecting an answer.  
  
"Unproductive," he said, filling in a patient chart. "I lied on the couch watching reruns of Third Rock from the Sun and Friends and slept for three days straight."  
  
"Sounds good to me," she said, wrapping up her work and giving a stack of patient charts to Frank, who groaned.  
  
"Just keep my work coming," he said sarcastically, shoving the stack onto the counter.  
  
"Well, Frank, it is what they pay you to do," Abby told him matter-of- factly. Frank shot her a dirty look, then noticed Carter sitting at the counter and filling out his notes.  
  
"Dr. Carter, something came for you today in the mail," he said, retrieving something from under the desk. Carter looked up from his notes.  
  
"What?" he said, now paying attention to what was being said. Frank thrust a large brown mailing envelope into Carter's hands.  
  
"Take it," Frank said as the phone rang and he left to answer it.  
  
Carter just sat there for a moment. The return address on the envelope was from the Summit County Children's Services office in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. Why on earth hadn't they sent the thing to his apartment? He wanted to see this, needed to read what was inside. He stacked his half-finished notes on a corner of the desk.  
  
"Hey, Frank, what's open?" He wanted to be alone, and didn't want to risk someone else watching him in the lounge.  
  
"Exam 4." Carter waved his hand in thanks as he carried the envelope into the exam room. He closed the door behind him and shut the blinds, sitting on the empty bed, feet up on the chair at the bedside. He held the brown envelope in his hands for a moment. All he could do was stare at it. It must have been some kind of letter, he decided, but couldn't bring himself to open the envelope. He wasn't quite sure what he was afraid of, but he couldn't shake a strange feeling of foreboding. Everyone he knew in connection with the envelope, except for the attorneys who had sent it to him, was dead.  
  
A sudden paroxysm came over him, a strange impulse, and he tore the envelope open, taking a breath. He overturned it, letting its contents fall onto the bed beside him. A thick envelope tumbled out, and another note fluttered onto the bed beside it. Carter set the brown envelope down and picked up the note. It was covered with untidy handwriting, scrawled in black ink.  
  
"Dr. John Carter,  
  
"Our offices, in connection with the Summit County Children's Services board, could not locate your home address, so we were forced to mail this to your workplace. I hope it has not caused too much of a problem.  
  
"Enclosed is a sealed envelope, presumably a letter from the late Ms. Barbara Knight. It was left for you. Because it is written material, we ask that you disclose any relevant information to our offices immediately. It is a strange request, but we ask it in all such cases.  
  
"Our office is open from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm, you'll find the phone number at the foot of this page. Thank you for your time.  
  
Sincerely,  
  
Vincent J. Black, Black & Black Associates"  
  
Carter turned the note over, there was nothing written on the reverse side, but he found a phone number written on the bottom of the page. He snorted. It was just like a lawyer to be too lazy to locate his home address. He put the note aside and turned his attention to the envelope lying at his side. He picked it up gingerly, as if it would deteriorate if he handled it roughly.  
  
Carter's mind went blank. His hands began to tremble slightly as the envelope seemed to grow heavy in his hands. The front of the envelope was addressed to him, John Carter, M.D., to be mailed to the hospital. The return address was handwritten, to Ms. Barbara Knight, 1674 Forest View Drive, Richfield, Ohio. It sported a stamp of the American flag, value at 34 cents. It lacked the postal ink that signified it had been mailed. Carter stared at the envelope, and, slowly and carefully, he opened it.  
  
With trembling hands, he slid out no less than seven sheets of stationery, filled with straight, elegant handwriting, and unfolded them. He began to read the letter:  
  
"Dear John,  
  
"You have no idea how strange this is to be writing something so personal to you. I met you only once, but I feel as if I have known you longer. I would like to keep a correspondence with you, but I'm sure that you would like nothing better than to forget about me now. I suppose it was painful to talk with me when we met years ago, but it hurt me to talk to you as well. I get comfort from it, but it still hurts.  
  
"My daughter died just three years ago, but it seems like so much longer. She used to call me every two or three days, and without those phone calls to sustain me, the time has passed so unbelievably slowly. When Lucy left me, she left behind her most precious gift. I am talking, of course, about her daughter Grace. You don't know her, but that is what brings me to write to you in the first place. There is so much to say, so I will start from the beginning.  
  
"When Lucy first began at Cook County, she was nervous. She didn't know where she fit into the scheme of things. She told me that all of the staff there were such a tight-knit group, and she hoped to fit in somehow. She was assigned to work with you then, Dr. Carter. She began to adapt. Lucy spoke of you frequently, of how the two of you were constantly arguments.  
  
"This next part is probably the only part of the story that is clearer to you than it is to me. I understand that, during the early winter of that year, you and Lucy had some sort of fling.  
  
Carter closed his eyes briefly, tearing his gaze away from the page. How could he have forgotten that? It had been the night after they had been caught in Exam 6. Carter had given her a ride back to her dorm, and one thing had led to another...nothing at all had ever happened after that. They both feared for their careers. He turned his attention back to the paper in his hand, picking up where he left off.  
  
"She told me that it was only once, and you agreed not to continue the relationship for professional reasons. Though it was only one time, Lucy found out later that she had become pregnant.  
  
"Oh, my God," Carter breathed. He continued reading, hooked by the story.  
  
"She told me as soon as she found out, and we had to decide what to do. Lucy was adamant about not giving up her child, and she knew that she could raise it alone. She used to say that after watching me be such a capable single mom, she didn't see the need for a partner at all. I think that was the stubbornness talking. We decided to keep the baby, and I would watch the child during the last year that Lucy was at school, when she could get a job wherever she matched, and take the baby with her.  
  
"It was hard for her at first, to face you and everyone else in the ER and keep her secret. The first trimester of her pregnancy went very well. She avoided caffeine, which she said was difficult to do because of the hours she worked. She stopped her Ritalin. She tried as hard as she could to avoid endangering cases without arousing suspicion. She tried hard herself not to get sick.  
  
"Of course, she had to get prenatal care somewhere, so she went to Mercy Hospital. She made sure that the records were confidential, and that nobody who knew her was there. She had several ultrasounds, and hid the printouts. Lucy found out in her second trimester that she was carrying a girl.  
  
"She began to gain weight, and she showed slightly at the end of the school year. Thank goodness that she was a late bloomer in that respect. She told colleagues at work that she was putting on the pounds because of the food she ate. She was careful to maintain a healthy diet throughout the pregnancy, though. The minute school got out, she came back home, and I helped her prepare for the baby. That summer, when she really was showing, she was in my care, and far enough away from anybody she knew to risk being caught.  
  
"We planned a Cesarean Section for mid-August, when the baby would be at 38 weeks, so that Lucy could go back to school without suspicion. A couple of weeks into July, though, the little girl showed her face to the world for the first time.  
  
"Grace Elizabeth Knight was born at 8:06 am on the morning of July 15, 1999. She weighed 5 pounds, 8 ounces, and measured 19 inches in length. When her birth certificate was filled out, you were filled in as the father. She felt too nervous to tell you just yet.  
  
"Lucy was so scared that she was too young, thought that she was too immature to take good care of the little girl. It was the first time that I ever saw her doubt her own abilities. She was so terrified, John, that she would screw it all up. She cried after she was born, she cried for her daughter, she loved her so much but didn't want to fail. I knew she wouldn't. Lucy loved Grace too much to mess up.  
  
"Lucy spent precious time with her daughter before returning to medical school in the fall. She had worked to get back to her fighting weight, so nobody noticed a thing. It was soon time for her to go back to Chicago. She hated leaving Grace behind, and I think that she wanted me to move to Chicago, get an apartment that we could share, so she could go to medical school and still see her daughter every day. She never asked me, though. I think she felt guilty about me stopping my life for her. I offered to move, but she told me that it was ridiculous to do so. Now I wish that I had.  
  
"I know it pained her to leave. She promised to come back as soon as she got a decent amount of time off. But that day at the airport, when she kissed Grace good-bye, she cried. She hated to leave, but she wanted so much to finish medical school. So she got on the plane to Chicago.  
  
"She called me daily after that, whenever she had time. She asked how Grace was, and she wanted to know how I was holding up. I swear! It's like she thought I was an old woman. I was 44 years old! But that's beside the story.  
  
"She wanted to come home for Christmas. I think she knew that that would be impossible. She wasn't supposed to take time off. She had a difficult case with a patient that Christmas, though, a Valerie Page who had heart problems. After she died, something about Lucy changed. She had to come back to see Grace. She still hadn't told you, but she felt relieved that she was no longer under your supervision.  
  
"So she asked for some time off. She had a little trouble, saying there was a family emergency, and eventually Dr. Weaver gave her a week, as long as Lucy would be willing to make the time up later. So she flew back to Cleveland to visit.  
  
"When she saw Grace in my arms at the airport, she cried. She was so upset that she had to leave her child behind, so she seriously thought about taking her back with her. I talked her out of that. I told her that she'd never be able to concentrate on her work if Grace was always there with her. She said she couldn't concentrate anyway.  
  
"So Lucy had a bonding time with her daughter that week. She went out and took Grace everywhere that was important to her, although she was too young to understand anyway. Sometimes, Lucy would just sit in a chair holding the child, looking out the window at the small, ice-covered lake. She never let that little girl out of her sight.  
  
"Leaving broke her heart again. She promised to come back as soon as she could. We were sure that we would see each other at her graduation that June, and Lucy said that she would tell you then, once she was out of med school.  
  
"Needless to say, that never happened. Grace never felt her mother's embrace again.  
  
"John, I can't imagine the shock you will feel reading this letter, if I ever get up the courage to send it. I know that you are still trying to deal with the aftershock of your own attack. Some scars never heal, though, difficult as that is. I speak to you as a grieving mother, I know the pain. But I also know the joy in new life, the joy that Grace has brought to my life. I cannot imagine how I would have ever gotten through these times without her.  
  
"Lucy is gone, as difficult as it is to write those words, but she lives on through her little girl. And as long as she is remembered, she will never die.  
  
"Thank you, John, for listening.  
  
"Yours sincerely,  
  
"Barbara Knight"  
  
Carter looked up from the letter in his hand. He couldn't believe the words that it contained. His eyes frantically read over the letter again. Surprised, Carter felt two tears running down his cheeks. His mind raced.  
  
So Grace was his daughter. His and Lucy's child, she was a part of both of them. Oh, God, Carter thought, How could this happen? But he had a daughter.  
  
He had a daughter, a sweet little five-year-old girl. She was a part of him. A part of Lucy. And she was sitting up on the fifth floor that very moment. He wanted to run to her. But he couldn't.  
  
He simply didn't know what to do, his mind was racing, he was confused, and, most of all, shocked. He had a daughter. This changed everything.  
  
********************************  
  
So I know that most of you are not shocked at all, but that's okay. It wasn't a big mystery to begin with to you...  
  
But how will everyone else react? Will Carter even tell people? Stick around for the next part to find out.  
  
I know it's taken forever, but I rewrote that stupid letter five times. Every time that I reread it, I found more things wrong with it. I finally left it as it was.  
  
Thanks for sticking around!! This is definitely not the end of the series, merely, a new beginning. I will try to make some of the plot go faster, to keep you all entertained, as a few of you seem to have gotten bored with this plot.  
  
REVIEWER FEEDBACK!!!  
  
MeligurlJO- Thanks again for being my most faithful reviewer. I'm really glad that you have stuck around, and glad that you took the time to give your feedback. Thank you so much!  
  
Nina- All of the medical terms come from different places. I volunteer at a hospital, and run errands for the ER when they need me. It's just stupid stuff like mailing things, but I pick stuff up there. Also, sometimes I just watch the show, write down terms I don't know and look them up later. My dad is a doctor too, so I just ask him and he knows most of the stuff. If you could, please e-mail me a list of the terms you would like to know and I will do my best to explain them. Thanks!  
  
EMSchick- yeah, I know the thing about the needle, it was a stupid mistake. I'm glad you took the time to review, thanks!  
  
Jane McCartney- In answer to your questions: Dakota Fanning? Definitely not, her hair is too light and the face is all wrong...I still haven't found a picture that could help you accurately visualize my picture of Grace. And I know Carter is great with kids, that was a personality flaw. I try to be as accurate as I can, though, and I hope I don't do that again.  
  
Twin*muse- Thank you for all of your reviews, I'm glad that you liked the story. I like the name too, lol! Keep reading!  
  
CARTERJOHN- You were right, but I didn't want to say anything until I had revealed it in the plot of the story. Thank you for reading!  
  
Dshortklutz- Here are your answers! I hope you stick around and read more, thanks for your reviews.  
  
Next chapter in a couple of weeks. Stay tuned!  
  
Snapdragon 


	14. Uncertain

DISCLAIMER: yada, yada, yada, yackety-yack.  
  
Sorry it took so long, but this chapter is especially long for you all! Enjoy!  
  
SAVING GRACE—CHAPTER 14  
  
Carter hadn't known what he should do after he had read that letter. He knew that he had to make a lot of phone calls to social services, and his family, and to the attorney, and to his own lawyer.  
  
He wasn't sure how he should be feeling, he was almost numb from a rush of emotions. He had always wanted to be a father, since he was young, so that he could have the chance to give to someone else what he had never received from his own parents. He couldn't imagine, at that moment, a better woman to share a child with. And he could not picture a more perfect daughter than Grace Elizabeth.  
  
Of course, she didn't know anything about it at all. Not yet, anyway. He knew that he needed to tell her, but wasn't sure how to do it. Should he drop the bomb on her sooner? Later? before or after he called SCCS? He didn't know. If he was dealing in the psychological matters of a child, Lucy's child, he didn't want to take any chances. He didn't want to tell her, because she would want to know what would happen to her. That future was something that even Carter was unsure of in that point.  
  
He felt that he still needed time to recover from the initial shock, but he truly didn't know which direction to take next. What could he do? His first instinct was to keep it a secret. He knew, though, that he couldn't do that. He couldn't let Grace go back to foster care not knowing that she had found her father after all. He didn't want to give her any false hopes. He didn't know what to do.  
  
He was a father; he had a beautiful little girl. True, he hadn't known her for her entire life, but she was his daughter nonetheless. That was still a difficult concept to get used to, his having a daughter. The words sounded so foreign on his tongue, they felt strange to speak. After a moment, though, he found that joy was bubbling over, and he felt a rush of the emotion. He was a father, a daddy, for a tiny, callow, vulnerable child whom he suddenly felt the need to protect.  
  
In the back of his mind, though, he knew that he couldn't make a rational judgment based only on the happiness welling up inside of him.  
  
He needed to talk to someone. Someone who wouldn't judge him on it. Carter knew that if Mark Green had been alive, he would have gone to him for advice. But, like Lucy, he was dead, and beyond his reach. He didn't feel like he could talk to Abby, not right away. He decided to tell Susan.  
  
First, though, he needed to talk to Grace. He needed to see her, tell her, to get the whole thing off of his chest. She had a right to know, he decided, she deserved to know, regardless of what would happen to her later.  
  
The elevator doors opened on the fifth floor and Carter stepped out. He again walked the hallway to room 512. He had done it so many times before. This time would be different though.  
  
He would be taking a look at Grace, his child, his daughter, for the first time since he had received the news that he had a child at all. Perhaps against his better judgment, he had neglected to call the SCCS office. He wanted to tell Grace first. He wanted to know what she would want from him.  
  
He briefly knocked on the door to the room and pushed the door open. He felt a different atmosphere in the room. Grace's bed was empty, but there was a small girl, younger than Grace, unconscious in the second bed in the room. Both of the child's' parents were talking in low voices by her bedside, and both of their heads snapped up as Carter entered the room.  
  
"Um-- Excuse me," he said, apologizing. The woman, with a tear-streaked face, nodded. Carter let himself out of the room.  
  
Where had she gone? He didn't think that she had therapy at that time of the day today, and he didn't know where else she would possibly be. He needed to find a nurse to ask. Fortunately, there was one at the Main Pediatric Admissions Desk. He tapped lightly on the counter, bringing the nurse out of her daze. She looked up.  
  
"Can I help you, Mr--?"  
  
"Carter, Dr. Carter, I work down in the Emergency Department. I'm looking for a patient, Grace Knight, she was in room 512, and she's not there. Do you know where she could be?" The nurse pulled a file out of a drawer.  
  
"Well," she said, flipping through the pages, "Miss Knight's physical therapy session was over an hour ago. She could perhaps be visiting a friend--" Carter shook his head. "--Or she could be in the playroom." Carter blinked.  
  
"The playroom?" he said absentmindedly. The nurse nodded. "Thank you, where is that?"  
  
"Go down this hallway, make a left, and the door will be on your left. There's a sign, you can't miss it."  
  
"Thank you," Carter said, turning and starting down the hallway. He found the room without any problems, and pushed the door open.  
  
He found himself in a room about four times the size of a patient room. The walls were painted with murals of the sky, with rainbows, clouds, hot air balloons, even mythical fairies and birds. There were numerous shelves and drawers, and child-sized tables where children could sit and draw. There were drawers with things for children of all ages, from plastic building blocks, to toy cars, to videos, jigsaw puzzles, dolls, crayons and paper, board games. In one corner was a television set, and around it sat two children watching a video. More children were scattered around the room, maybe a dozen in all, occupying themselves with various activities.  
  
It wasn't hard to locate Grace. She sat at a table with two other children, a boy about her age and an older girl, maybe nine years old. They were cooperatively stuffing plastic organs into a model of the human body. Carter smiled, seeing that Grace's wheelchair wasn't there, that she had crutches propped up at the side of the table. He approached the kids.  
  
"I think," he began, squatting at their level, "that the kidneys are more towards the back of the body." The three children looked at him, and Grace smiled.  
  
"Hi Dr. Carter," she said. Carter smiled at her.  
  
"Hey, kiddo. Who are your friends?"  
  
"This is Ashley, and this is Bobby," she said, indicating each of the children in turn. Carter nodded.  
  
"Do you want to go for a walk?" he asked. She frowned; a reaction that Carter had not been expecting. "What's wrong?" At this point, the other children had gone back to their model of the body.  
  
"I can't walk," she answered, pouting. She threw a furtive look at the small crutches propped against the table. Carter understood.  
  
"Well, how about we go back to your room and get your wheelchair?" Grace thought for a moment.  
  
"Okay," she said. She turned to her newfound friends. "I'm leaving. I will see you later, okay?"  
  
"Okay," said the little boy, Bobby, in a small voice. He was acting as if he was intimidated by Carter's presence. Ashley simply smiled and nodded. Grace said good-bye, and picked up her crutches. She warily tucked them under her arms and pushed herself up.  
  
It was slow going, and Carter had to keep a careful eye on her while they were making their way down the corridor to the room to make sure that she didn't hurt herself more. When Grace stumbled and almost fell, he asked her if she needed help. She said, rather forcefully, that she could do it by herself, and Carter stepped back. Once in the room, Carter retrieved her wheelchair and helped her into it. Stashing the crutches near her bed, Carter wheeled the chair out of the room.  
  
"Where are we going?" Grace asked as Carter pushed her down the hallway toward the elevator.  
  
"Someplace special," he responded mysteriously. They got onto the elevator and Carter pressed a button. When they left the lift, they went down a short hallway. Carter pushed open a door, making sure it was unlocked, and brought the little girl out into the sunshine of the afternoon.  
  
"Where are we?" Grace asked, clearly enjoying the sunshine, even if it was chilly outside.  
  
"We," Carter said, "Are on the roof of the hospital." Grace looked around approvingly.  
  
"I like it. It's nice. Look how far you can see!" she said excitedly.  
  
"I know. This is where I like to come to get away from the noise in the hospital," Carter told her truthfully. Grace nodded. She seemed mesmerized by the landscape, the sights and sounds of Chicago in the daylight. He parked her wheelchair a few feet from the edge of the roof, and sat on a raised part of the roof facing her. He let out a sigh.  
  
"What's wrong?" the child asked, innocently concerned. She looked at Carter with her blue eyes round, and at that moment, it really hit him. His heart melted for her, this child, his daughter. She was his daughter, and he knew that he loved her. He smiled.  
  
"Nothing's wrong at all," he said. "In fact, I have good news." Grace's eyebrows rose slightly, anticipating the news.  
  
"What?" Carter moistened his lips, and looked straight into her eyes.  
  
"I think," he began, "that we have found your father." In an instant, Grace's eyes lit up, and her mouth broke out into a grin that seemed much too large for her face. She squirmed in her chair.  
  
"Really?" Grace asked excitedly. "Where? When can I meet him?"  
  
"You were right, he lives here in Chicago."  
  
"When can I meet him?" she asked, overflowing with enthusiasm. She still wore a smile on her face, and her eyes sparkled. Carter took a deep breath.  
  
"It's me, Grace," he said. Grace's smile slowly faded, a look of confusion replacing it.  
  
"What?" she asked, looking at him intently. Carter paused.  
  
"I--" he began, voice surprisingly less strong than he would have expected. "I'm your--your father." He let the remaining air out of his lungs and gave the news time to sink into Grace's small mind. She looked down at her hands, and, after a moment, ,turned her gaze on Carter. There was a moment of silence, Grace looking at him, and unreadable expression on her face.  
  
"Daddy?" she asked in a small voice. Carter nodded.  
  
Grace suddenly broke her face into a grin, her eyes shining. Without warning, she flung herself the short distance that separated her from Carter, wrapping her arms around his neck. Carter sat, frozen for a split second. Relaxing, he held the child as she buried her head in the crick between his neck and shoulder. With one hand, he stroked her soft, blond hair.  
  
"I found you," Grace whispered quietly. At these words, Carter felt tears well up in his eyes. But, for the first time in years, it wasn't because he was sad.  
  
It was because he was happy.  
  
"Oh, man," Susan exclaimed, sounding harassed, as she slammed a completed dispo on top of a pile.  
  
"Hey, watch it!" Frank exclaimed, dodging the flying clipboard. Susan ignored him. Carter looked across the desk from where he was completing his own dispo of a headache patient. He, unlike Susan, chose to neatly place the form on the stack of papers in the tray. Frank glared at Susan, while a smile played at Carter's lips. It was so funny to see Susan angry. She could be oh so entertaining.  
  
"Dare I ask the problem, Dr. Lewis?" he asked nonchalantly, earning him a glare from the addressed party. She held the look for a moment, and her face softened.  
  
"Nothing, Carter," she said, shaking her head. "Just been a pretty rough day. I need a break." Carter smiled.  
  
"Yeah, it's been an interesting day for me, too," he told her, grinning. He earned a strange look from Susan.  
  
"I'll say, you can't stop smiling," she paused, looking him over. "Are you shooting up drugs again?" Carter laughed.  
  
"No, this is a natural high." Susan rolled her eyes.  
  
"Stop being happy, Carter, you're depressing me." He attempted to hide a smile.  
  
"Let's get out of here," he said. "We can go across to Doc's and get something to eat. Chat about it over that wonderful, rich, diner coffee?" Susan raised an eyebrow.  
  
"You buying?" she asked, setting the pen she had from filling out the chart onto the counter. It rolled away and dropped to the floor. She glanced down and ignored it.  
  
"Yep, it's on me," he said, smiling. Susan took a fraction of a second to make up her mind.  
  
"Sure," she nodded. "I'll grab my jacket and we can get out of here."  
  
Five minutes later, they were sitting at a booth at Doc Magoo's, steaming mugs of hot coffee in front of them. Susan was carping on about some patient, and Carter was smiling and nodding, listening politely.  
  
"---So in the end, I told him that he had no right to question my sexual orientation, and he kept at it, called me a few choice names and I got pretty pissed."  
  
"I saw," Carter answered, grinning. "I think they should call you Dr. Firecracker. You and Abby would make a great team." Susan sipped her coffee, choosing to ignore him.  
  
"What about you?" She asked. "What's with Mr. Sunshine all of a sudden?" Carter suddenly got serious. What would she think about it? Did he really want to let the cat out of the bag so soon? He took a breath, thinking fast.  
  
"It's a long story. You really want to hear it?" he asked, resolved. She nodded.  
  
"Yeah, go ahead."  
  
"Well," he began, "It all started last week..."  
  
He told her the whole story. He included the details: the afternoon visits, the card games, Grace coming to visit him in recovery, stories about her foster family, her search for her father, the letter, all of it. Susan was a surprisingly good audience. She interjected in all of the right places, and was silent and serious when it mattered. Since she hadn't known Lucy, or the circumstances or details of their relationship, she was unbiased for the most part. When he finished she fell silent, aghast.  
  
"So..." she said, shocked, "you have a daughter?" Carter took a swig of his coffee.  
  
"Yep," he smiled at the thought. "Of course, they are going to want to do a paternity test to confirm it, but it should be easy enough." Susan seemed much less thrilled than he did about the news. "What?" he asked her.  
  
"Don't you think you are going into this a little...fast?"  
  
"What do you mean?" Susan fell silent, choosing her words carefully in her mind.  
  
"Well, what are you planning on doing?" Carter thought for a moment.  
  
"I want to take care of her," he said, sure of himself.  
  
"Permanently?"  
  
"Susan," he began, looking at her as if to ask why she would say something like that. "It's me or it's foster care until she's 18. What do you want me to do?" She shook her head.  
  
"No, Carter," she said. "The thing is; what do you want to do?"  
  
He fell silent, staring into his coffee. He hadn't thought about that a whole lot. He wasn't even sure that he was doing the right thing, not sure of what he should do in the situation. Maybe this wasn't the best thing, maybe he should just let Grace go back to the foster family in Ohio.  
  
Carter knew what he wanted to do, and he knew why he wanted to do it. It was if a bell had been going off in his conscience, alerting him.  
  
"Susan," he began. "Today, when I told Grace that I was her father, I wasn't sure how she would react, even how I would do it. But she flung herself into my arms, and she knew before I did what it meant. Right then, as she was hugging me, I felt a strange sort of protective love. It's the kind of love a parent feels for his child, that undying, unconditional love. I know it sounds crazy, but I would have lain down in front of the el in order to protect that child. I have to keep her."  
  
"It's not about my career," he continued. "It's not about money or anything else. I have someone who is depending on me, Susan. I can't let her down." He finished. Susan nodded slowly.  
  
"You sure that you can do this? Be a father?"  
  
"No, I'm not sure," he said. "But I love this little girl too much already, and I owe it to her, I owe it to Lucy, and Barbara, to at least try to be a good father." He let out a breath of air, and Susan stayed quiet, taking it all in.  
  
"Okay, John," she said. "If you want to do this, I'm not gonna stop you. I'll help you, if you need it. I remember feeling the same way with Little Susie years ago after Chloe left."  
  
"Thanks," Carter said smiling. He really meant it. He watched Susan take a sip of her coffee, and he was thankful to have such a great friend. Susan smiled to herself.  
  
"You know," she said, grinning softly, "if you ever need help babysitting or anything, I can help you." She told him this as she set down her coffee onto the table. "She is such a sweet girl, and so much fun. She's so mature for a five-year-old." Carter beamed, proud of his child. It still felt weird to think of the little girl like that.  
  
"I know," he said, nodding his head slightly. "She speaks so well, and controls her emotions better than someone twice her age."  
  
"Well, maybe once she comes with you, we can put the childhood back into her." Carter smiled sadly.  
  
"Yeah," he said. "She has been through so much in such a short time; she's been forced to grow up so fast." The two of them sat there, considering the words and how true they really were. They shared the moments of silence, until Susan broke them.  
  
"So who knows about this?"  
  
"What?" Carter said abruptly, still lost in his thoughts.  
  
"Who else knows about Grace being your daughter?"  
  
"Nobody," he said nonchalantly, taking a swig of his now not-so-steaming- hot coffee, avoiding Susan's eyes, which widened upon hearing these words.  
  
"Nobody? No one at all?" she asked, shocked.  
  
"Well, Grace knows." Susan, taking this fact as a given, ignored him.  
  
"Carter, when do you plan on letting this out of the bag?"  
  
"I was kind of hoping that you would help me do that." Her eyes grew rounder, a look of bewilderment sparkling in them.  
  
"Me?! How?"  
  
"Well," Carter said, drawing out his response. "Since everybody already seems to know that Grace is Lucy's daughter, and some of them suspect that I am the father, and seeing as how nurses are the biggest gossips on the planet..."  
  
"You were hoping," Susan continued, catching on. "That I could help a rumor along a little bit? So you wouldn't have to make a big announcement?" Carter smiled, and leaned back in the seat of his booth.  
  
"Exactly," he said. "You know how I am with big formal announcements."  
  
Susan consented, and sure enough, with hours, the rumors were circulating as planned. Carter was getting a wide variety of looks from a wide variety of people as he walked down the hallway, many of whom he had never even met before. Carter couldn't help smiling to himself, everything was going as planned. In a few hours, Kerry would call him into some sort of meeting to discuss the rumors, and he would let the cat out of the bag officially. All he had to do was wait for the time to come.  
  
No more than four hours after Susan had begun to circulate the rumors, Kerry approached him in the hallway and beckoned him into the lounge to talk, kicking everybody else out temporarily. She gestured at him, signaling to sit down. He did so, facing Kerry, who took a seat at the table as well. She looked at him as if trying to pass a judgment in her mind, and folded her hands on the table.  
  
"Carter," she began, looking up at him. Carter looked up with raised eyebrows, making her think that he didn't know what she was going to ask him about. He wanted to tell her to cut to the chase, but when she spoke next, there was no need for that. "There have been some...rumors going around." She put a certain emphasis on the word 'rumors,' which made Carter want to laugh out loud. Did she honestly think that he was that clueless?  
  
"Yes, there are always rumors going around, the nurses are gossips, aren't they?" he asked, playing a certain mind game. He soon found out that he was alone in the game. Kerry shook her head.  
  
"No, I mean specific rumors, something involving that little Jane Doe." She took a breath. "Something about you being her father. Now, I realize that the hospital staff has a tendency to gossip, but--"  
  
"That rumor is true," Carter finished for her. Kerry sat there, stunned for a moment. She seemed too shocked, processing the information, to make a remark right away.  
  
"Oh," was all that she could manage. Carter nodded.  
  
"Yeah," he said. "Believe me, I was as shocked as you are, maybe more, when I found out." He smiled. "I was the one who started the rumor. Actually, I got Susan to do it, so that I wouldn't have to make a big announcement about the whole thing." Kerry nodded slowly.  
  
"I see," she said. She suddenly straightened up and put on her Chief-of- Staff tone of voice again. "So what do you plan on doing about this whole ordeal?"  
  
"I don't consider it an ordeal, Dr. Weaver," Carter said, explaining this to her. "I think that it is one of the greatest things that could happen. I have wanted to have children ever since--" he broke off, pausing. He was about to say since he and Kem had miscarried earlier that year. Kem had, indeed, left him to go back to Africa to 'regroup.'  
  
"Anyway, I plan on filing for the adoption of the child." Kerry's mouth fell open.  
  
"Adopting?" she said, trying to wrap her mind around it.  
  
"Yes, and if I'm not mistaking, you are going through the same thing right now with Henry." Carter had his a weak spot. He smiled at Kerry, and she nodded slowly.  
  
"Right," she said. She seemed to be considering something. "Well, Dr. Carter, I think it is great, and if you need help with anything, let me know. Good luck." Carter smiled.  
  
"Thanks Kerry," he said. Kerry nodded, and stood up to leave. As she made her way out the door, crutch clicking on the ground, Carter was left with his own thoughts.  
  
Almost mindlessly, he knew that he needed to make the call. He went to his locker and retrieved the number for the attorney's office, and the number for the SCCS office. He needed to call both numbers.  
  
The first phone call, to Black and Black Associates, went well. They listened to him, advised him to call the Children's Services office. They also told him that the SCCS office had been in touch with them, and that they would be sending him a box of things when the representative came to pick Grace up from the hospital in a couple of days.  
  
The second phone call was harder. He was put on the line with a woman, Miss Goetz, who was coincidentally the same woman who would be coming down to Chicago to pick up the little girl from the hospital. He told her the story.  
  
"Well," she said, "What I can do is give you the name of a good attorney, and you need to file for adoption. There shouldn't be a problem for you, seeing as how you are the father. Of course, we'll need to do a paternity test to prove that, but your application should go quick and easy. You'll have to go through a background check and fill out a lot of forms, and it could take a few months, but you should pass through it easily."  
  
"Thank you," Carter told her, a smile spreading across his face. "Is that all, then?"  
  
"Yes, Dr. Carter, I'll call you when we have more information, and we'll see each other soon anyway." Carter nodded, even though he knew that Miss Goetz couldn't see him, but it was an instinct.  
  
"Thanks again," he said. They said goodbye, and Carter hung up.  
  
This was all happening so fast.  
  
It had only been yesterday that he had found out about Grace being his daughter. He realized then that he hadn't called his family yet.  
  
He also needed to talk to Grace.  
  
The girl was only five years old, but she was so grown-up for that age that Carter sometimes forgot that he was interacting with a small child. When he had told her that he was her father, she had reacted immediately. She expected now that she would not have to go back to foster care, she wanted to go right to Carter.  
  
He hated to have to be the one to break her heart and send her back.  
  
He found himself in Grace's hospital room before he knew it. She was sitting there, reading a child's book, and slowly progressing through it. When she saw Carter, the book was immediately forgotten. She looked up at him, smile spread across her face, blue eyes sparkling. It was obvious that she was almost recovered from her injuries. Her smile was contagious, and he smiled back.  
  
"Hey, kiddo," he said, sitting on the end of her bed. She scooted to make room for him, though she didn't have to move much.  
  
"Hi," she paused as she cast a look around the empty room. "--Daddy." Carter was still getting used to the idea of someone calling him Daddy, but for the most part, he liked it.  
  
The reason that Grace had stopped and paused was that Carter had encouraged Grace not to talk openly about his being her father just yet. Once he had announced it, she would be free to speak about the matter. She would probably be back in foster care by then. This brought Carter back to his point.  
  
"Grace," Carter said, sighing. "I have something to tell you." The excitement in her eyes turned to worry.  
  
"What?" she asked, a hint of apprehension in her voice. Carter moistened his lips.  
  
"I'm afraid--" he began, "I'm afraid that you can't come to live with me right away." He looked at her for a response. The little girl looked hurt.  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Because the children's services office has to go through lots of paperwork in order to let me take you. I have to go through a lot of tests."  
  
"But I can come eventually?"  
  
"Of course," Carter said, trying to give her a convincing smile. "As soon as the legal things have been taken care of." Grace nodded, sitting in silence.  
  
"What will I do until then?"  
  
"You will have to go back to the Thompson's house, Grace," he said, breaking the news gently. Her lower lip quivered.  
  
"I don't want to go back," she said bluntly. Carter put a hand on her shoulder to comfort her.  
  
"Listen," he said. "I know that you don't want to go back. But don't you miss the Thompsons? And the other kids at the house?" Grace shook her head.  
  
"No," she said.  
  
"Well, I'm sure they miss you," Carter guessed. Grace contorted her face with a skeptical look.  
  
"I don't think so."  
  
Carter didn't know how to respond to that. There was a pause in the conversation.  
  
"Can't I stay with you?" she asked in a small voice. She stared at her hands, which were folded in her lap. Carter sighed.  
  
"No, Grace, you can't," he said, as gently as he could. Her face fell.  
  
"Do you want me with you?"  
  
"Yes, of course I do," he exclaimed. He exhaled quickly, scooting his chair closer, resting his hand on her shoulder. "Grace, it is very complicated. Before you can come with me, the people at the SCCS have to make sure that I will take care of you. They have to make me fill out a lot of papers, and talk to people about me to make sure that I am giving you a good home. They have to ask me a lot of questions and it could take a long time."  
  
Grace sat silently, head still down. She nodded slowly. Carter looked at her for a moment, and slowly reached his hand out to touch her soft, blonde hair. He stroked her hair slowly and comfortingly. She gave a small sigh.  
  
"How long?"  
  
"I don't know, sweetheart."  
  
"How long?" she asked again, quietly, waiting for an answer. She lifted her head up, looking at Carter expectantly.  
  
"Close to a month," he began, but Grace lowered her head again, looking away. "But," he continued, "I know some good lawyers, friends of the family who owe us a favor. There is a good chance that your case could be sped up to go faster. Okay?" he finished, hoping that she would react relatively well to this news. She did.  
  
She looked back up at him, her clear blue eyes studying his, searching them for a clue to what was going on. After a moment or two, she nodded.  
  
"Okay," she said quietly. "I'll go back. But only if you promise to come back."  
  
Carter hesitated. Making promises that he couldn't necessarily keep to a five-year-old. An intelligent one, but still a small child at that. He nodded suddenly.  
  
"I promise," he said.  
  
"Swear?"  
  
"Cross my heart," Carter said, raising his hand to his heart and drawing an imaginary X with his finger. His hand dropped to his lap, and Grace smiled.  
  
"Okay," she said. "Then I will go back to the foster care house tomorrow." Carter smiled and nodded.  
  
"Alright then," he said. "It's settled." He clapped his hands together. "Well," he exclaimed in a strangely cheery voice, "we only have a day left. Let's go do something." Grace smiled.  
  
"Like what?"  
  
"Let's get out of this room, for starters." He glanced at the clock. "I'm off now, we can do anything that you want in the hospital." Grace followed his gaze at the clock. She frowned.  
  
"I have therapy in half an hour." Carter nodded slowly.  
  
"I see," he said, slight disappointment in his voice. Grace shrugged.  
  
"I have to go, I need to learn these crutches before I go back."  
  
"I understand," Carter said. "I'll be back later to see you, okay?"  
  
"Okay," she said, giving a small smile. Carter tousled her hair.  
  
"Bye, kiddo," he said.  
  
"Bye," she said as he turned and left the room. He would be back later to see her.  
  
Carter made his way back down to the ER, into the doctor's lounge. He found Jerry there, pouring a cup of coffee.  
  
"Hey, Jerry," Carter said, aiming to get him out of the room so that he could be alone. "You are the desk clerk, right? Shouldn't you be at the desk?" Jerry rolled his eyes.  
  
"Yes, yes, I know!" he said, exasperated, as he finished pouring his coffee. Taking a sip, he lingered for a moment by the counter. Carter crossed his arms and cleared his throat mockingly, tapping his foot. Jerry snorted, picked up his coffee and left the lounge.  
  
This left Carter alone. He dialed the combination to his locker, opening it. There was something that he needed to do. He took a post-it note out of the locker, and sat down on the couch near the phone. He picked up the receiver, hesitating, before dialing the number written on the bit of paper. After two rings, a male voice answered.  
  
"Carter residence, may I be of some assistance?" Carter recognized it as being Alger, the butler of the house. He cleared his throat.  
  
"May I speak to Mrs. Millicent Carter, please?"  
  
"Certainly, sir. Who, might I ask, is calling?"  
  
"John Truman Carter II."  
  
"Ah, I thought I recognized your voice, sir. I'll put her on immediately." Carter nodded to himself and leaned back against the lumpy sofa in the lounge.  
  
"Hello, Millicent Carter speaking," a feminine voice came onto the other end.  
  
"Gamma, it's John," he began. "I have something to tell you."  
  
Okay! So there's Chapter 14. Chapter 15 is going to contain a couple of heartbreaking moments for our beloved Dr. Carter, as well as Grace. A few surprises in there as well, so keep reading!  
  
REVIEWER SHOUT-OUTS!!!  
  
MeliGurlJO, Dragon Spirit Fighter, EMS Chick, lily, dshortklutz, and No Ink in my Pen: Thanks sooo much for your awesome feedback. I hope that this chapter has met your expectations.  
  
No Ink in my Pen: In response to your review, you might be surprised to know that I do not actually live in Ohio. I live in a tiny little town in Virginia, about half an hour from Richmond. My family has good friends in Ohio, and they live in Richfield. We visit them about three times a year, so I have grown to know the area.  
  
That's all for now,  
  
Signing out,  
  
Snapdragon 


	15. Anxious

DISCLAIMER: I promise that none of these characters, except my OCs, aremine, and I'm not using them to make money, yada yada yada.  
  
Hey all! Sorry that it took me so long to update, but here is the next (hopefully intriguing) chapter of the story!  
  
SAVING GRACE—CHAPTER 15  
  
Telling the news to his family hadn't been incredibly eventful. He had gotten a few very negative reactions, and some more positive ones, so they seemed to balance out.  
  
Millicent had been thrilled. She had a grandchild, and she didn't seem to mind too much that Grace was conceived out of wedlock. As terrible as it sounds, the fact that Lucy, the mother of the child, was dead actually played to Carter's advantage in handling the family situation. This fact helped some of his relatives to cope with the news more easily. Because they looked at having a child without being married as wrong, they implied that if Lucy was alive they would be married, so it wasn't an issue, really.  
  
It hadn't taken long for the news to get through the family tree, and everybody knew in, calculating Gamma's phone speed, under an hour. She was already talking about organizing a 'coming out' party for her, to introduce her to the family. Carter had snickered at the thought; he had thought that coming out parties were for the royalty, when the girls had reached the age of 17 or 18, but Millicent insisted on doing something to bring her to formally meet people. Carter had argued that she was only five years old, and that he didn't really have custody of her yet. His Gamma, of course, wanted to have the party anyway.  
  
The topic of the lawyer to hurry along the case was brought up by Millicent herself, without Carter's previously mentioning the issue. She told him not to worry about it one bit, that she would take care of the lawyer to speed up the custody application for him. Carter had thanked her profusely.  
  
When he got home from work that night, he found no less than 24 messages on his answering machine from everybody: Aunts, uncles, cousins, his sister, parents, grandfather, in addition to calls from Susan, Elizabeth, Abby, and several of the other staff members at the hospital.  
  
Carter could hardly sleep that night, waiting anxiously for the dawn of the next day. He didn't want the woman from Social Services to come and take Grace away from him. He knew she would come, though, and nothing that he did would change that. He fell asleep for a short time, knowing that he didn't have to work the next day. When he awoke again at 2:45 am, he couldn't stand the insomnia and decided to rise and start early.  
  
After taking a shower, dressing in his own casual clothes (Khaki cargo pants and a navy blue pullover sweater), he grabbed his bag and went back out into the night. Since he had been assaulted, he was extra cautious of avoiding areas of the street that weren't lit well. He made it to the El safely, and got onto the train, riding over to the hospital. He got off of the train and heard a familiar ambulance siren in the distance as he began the walk back over to County.  
  
He walked through the double doors and into the bright white hospital, finding it remarkably quiet. Randi sat at the desk, blowing bubbles with her chewing gum and reading a fashion magazine. She looked up, hearing the footsteps.  
  
"Hey, Dr. Carter," she said, popping a bubble with her teeth and setting down her magazine. "You are either very early or very late." Carter shook his head.  
  
"I'm actually not on today. If there is a trauma, though, you can go ahead and page me. I'll be upstairs." He saw a flicker of realization flash over her face.  
  
"Oh," she said. "Upstairs, upstairs." Carter nodded slowly, his mouth smiling, but eyes frowning.  
  
"Yes, Randi, upstairs. Okay?" She shrugged and went back to her magazine. Carter rode the elevator up to the floor to find it nearly vacant of nurses. He wandered into Grace's room, and shut the door quietly.  
  
The room was dark, quiet. The other bed in the room was occupied by a girl of around 12, who was sleeping in her bed. She was accompanied by her mother, who was sleeping next to her daughter on a makeshift cot. Carter quietly stepped across the room and closed the curtain that separated the sides of the room. He approached Grace's bed, pulling up a padded chair, and sitting down in it.  
  
He sat there for a long time, precisely how long, he didn't even know. He sat and he watched the small girl sleep. She was so small, defenseless, fragile.  
  
But he knew then, looking at the small girl asleep and peaceful there, that he would do anything for this girl. He was his daughter, and he loved her already more than he thought was possible. He would make any sacrifice that he needed to for her.  
  
Carter didn't remember when exactly it was he fell asleep. He did remember waking up, though, hearing muffled footsteps on the floor. The feet stopped shuffling for a moment, and Carter opened his eyes a fraction of an inch.  
  
The room was dark still, with tiny rays of light streaking into the room through the window from the light in the hallway. He could make out a woman's shadow at Grace's bedside. He squeezed his eyes shut again and opened them, still a bit groggy from falling asleep. The person turned around as Carter stretched his neck, a bit sore from sleeping in the upright chair. He found himself face-to-face with Elizabeth.  
  
"Elizabeth," he said groggily. "What time is it?" He could see her smiling gently in the very dark room.  
  
"It's almost 10 after 5," she said. Carter nodded.  
  
"What are you doing here?"  
  
"I was supposed to have a pancreaticojujunostomy at 5, but it was cancelled."  
  
"No, I mean what are you doing here?" Carter repeated the question, putting special emphasis on the word 'here.'  
  
"Oh," she said, still whispering. "Well, I wanted to see Grace again before she leaves. She does leave today, right?" Carter nodded. He hoped that Elizabeth could not make out the disappointment in his face through the darkness of the room.  
  
"Yeah," he said. He could hear a slight sadness in his own voice. Elizabeth did, too. She pulled over the rolling stool from under the counter of the room and sat down, facing Carter.  
  
"I heard about your being Grace's father," she said, somewhat comfortingly. "Congratulations." Carter snorted, smiling.  
  
"You know, you're the only person who's told me that besides Susan."  
  
"Really?"  
  
"Yeah, everyone else was too appalled to know what to say, or if they should say anything to me at all." Elizabeth nodded. Just then, Carter heard the familiar beeping of a pager. Instinctively, he turned to check his own pager, clipped to the inside of his bag.  
  
"It's me," she said, sighing. "I'm being paged to the ER." She stood up and tucked the pager into waist of her scrubs. "This should be fun."  
  
"You know it," Carter said, smiling. Elizabeth crossed the short distance over to Grace's bedside. She smoothed the little girl's hair and turned towards Carter.  
  
"I'll try to come by later, to say goodbye face to face, if I get a chance," she told him. He nodded. "If I can't, tell her that I said goodbye for me?" she said, more a question than a command. Carter nodded again.  
  
"Of course," he reassured her. Elizabeth nodded.  
  
"Good, thank you," she said, making her way over to the door and opening it quietly. "See you later, Carter." With that, she was gone.  
  
Carter quietly moved his chair to the side of the bed, so as not to disturb Grace, who was sleeping soundly in the bed. He sat down, looking at her face. She looked so peaceful, at ease. He stretched out his hand and stroked her hair softly. It was hard to believe that in less than 12 hours, she would be gone.  
  
"I love you, Grace," he said quietly, so softly that he could barely hear it himself.  
  
"Got any sevens?"  
  
"Nope, go fish," Grace said, pointing to the stack of cards resting on the table.  
  
Grace had woken up early, at around 6:30 that morning, to find Carter still sitting with her in the chair next to the bed. They had sat quietly, as the rays of sunlight gradually crept into the room, watching the early morning television until there was enough light in the room to do something else without having to turn on all of the lights. So they sat, playing the 9th round of Go Fish that morning.  
  
Carter tried to keep the mood light and playful, but Grace seemed to be slightly downtrodden that day. He knew that it was because she would soon leave, but he did the best that he could to push that thought to the back of his mind.  
  
Carter drew another card with a look of reluctance on his face. Grace giggled at him; he was losing profoundly. Both of their heads turned in the direction of the door when the morning nurse came into the room, carrying a tray of food.  
  
"Good morning, Miss Grace," she said cheerily. "I've brought breakfast, if you are ready for it." Grace nodded, and the nurse came to set the tray on the table. Carter cleared the cards off of the surface. The nurse turned to him and gave him a look, studying him.  
  
"Thank you," Grace said from behind her.  
  
"You're welcome, sweetie." She turned back to Carter. "Dr. Carter, could I get you something to eat?" Carter shook his head.  
  
"No, thank you anyway, though."  
  
"How do you take your coffee?"  
  
"Oh, you really don't--"  
  
"Black, cream, sugar?" Carter was defeated, so he decided not to argue.  
  
"No cream, two sugars," he said. "Thank you." The nurse nodded and smiled at him, walking back out the door. Carter shifted in his chair. Grace began to eat her breakfast. "So what time do you have therapy today?"  
  
"From nine until ten," she said before taking a bite of the French toast on the tray. Carter nodded.  
  
"It's early today."  
  
"Yes, the lady comes today at 2 to get me, so it couldn't be at the normal time." Carter nodded, almost mechanically. It was still taking him some time to get used to the idea of her leaving.  
  
They spent time together that morning, and at nine o'clock sharp, he took her up to physical therapy. She insisted on walking on the crutches, so they went slowly. Arriving at the door, Grace stopped short.  
  
"Are you going to come and get me later?" she asked, biting her lower lip. Carter smiled comfortingly at her.  
  
"Of course. I will spend the rest of the day here with you." Grace smiled, and Carter went to check her in to her appointment.  
  
Carter found himself on the roof minutes later, holding a cup of coffee and a bagel. There was a chill in the air; winter would be coming in a few weeks to Chicago. The breeze ruffled through his hair as he drank the coffee, deep in thought.  
  
Two weeks ago, this child had been carried into his life on a gurney, and his plans had changed. It almost gave his life a new direction. He felt a deep-seated love for the girl, and he knew that it was to deep to go away.  
  
His grandmother's lawyer was meeting with him the next day to go over the custody case, to file for permanent custody of the child on paternal rights. The case would be pushed ahead, but Carter did not know exactly when he would see his daughter again after that day. He sighed.  
  
He had had second thoughts, but they lasted only a fraction of a second. There was, after all, a great responsibility attached to adopting a little girl. He would have to alter his work schedule to be with her, rearrange his apartment to give her the other bedroom, save money for her education, buy clothes and other necessities, learn to cook, learn to be a parent. The rewards somehow seemed greater than the consequences.  
  
Carter's pager beeped then. He was so startled by the noise that he almost spilled coffee down the front of his sweater. He looked at the number on the pager. It was the ER. He cleared the number, ignoring the page.  
  
He shivered slightly from his seat on the roof, finishing his bagel and looking out over the city of Chicago in the morning. It was surprisingly quieter than he would have thought, and the ever-present wailing of ambulance sirens was seldom heard. It was probably a slow morning in the ER.  
  
Glancing at his watch after he had been sitting there for a while, he saw that it was almost 10. He needed to get back down to get Grace from her therapy appointment. He made his way down the stairs and across a hallway into the waiting area of the therapy area. Just in the nick of time, he sat down in a chair. A door opened and Grace hobbled out on the crutches, followed by a small black woman with glasses and curly hair that framed her face.  
  
"Make sure that you go see a therapist at home, ok Grace?" The child nodded at her.  
  
"Okay. I'll miss you, Mrs. Pembra," she said. The woman smiled.  
  
"I will miss you too. Have a safe trip home."  
  
"I will. Thank you." Grace made her way over to Carter, who stood. Together, they left the room and went back to the elevator.  
  
"So what did you do today?" Grace shrugged, getting into the elevator. She pressed the button to go back to the Pedes floor.  
  
"I did work with how to go up and down the stairs safely with the crutches." Carter nodded.  
  
"That's important."  
  
"I guess," she responded, sounding a little bit depressed. Carter frowned slightly, noticing this.  
  
"What's wrong, sweetheart? You're being so quiet." Grace shrugged. Carter decided not to push the issue. The elevator came to a halt on the Pedes floor and they got out. Heading up the hallway back to Grace's room, Carter heard someone call his name.  
  
"Carter, hey Carter!" He turned around to see Abby running down the hall toward him.  
  
"What's wrong?" he asked, stopping in the hallway and walking toward her, Grace following.  
  
"Where--have--you--been?" she gasped, breathless. "I--paged you--a few times."  
  
"Slow down, catch your breath. What's wrong?" Abby shook her head.  
  
"No time, there's an emergency, they need you in the ER immediately."  
  
"But--"  
  
"Now!" Abby cut him off. Carter saw that her face held a sense of urgency. He looked at Grace, then back again.  
  
"I have to take--" he began.  
  
"Bring her! Just come, now, follow me. There's no time," she cut him off again. Carter reached down and swooped Grace up in his arms. She still held her crutches, a small smile played at her face.  
  
"All right," he said to the child. "We are going to run, so hold on tight." Grace nodded, and Carter looked back at Abby.  
  
He walked briskly down the hallway, the walk turning into a run as they made a dash for the elevator. They rode down to the ER and Carter bolted out of the elevator, Abby close behind him, Grace in his arms. He looked around, glancing at Abby.  
  
"Drop her off in the lounge," she said. Carter nodded and carried the little girl around to the door quickly, pushing the door open.  
  
"SURPRISE!" the acclamations of his co-workers rang out from inside of the room. Carter's face contorted in slight confusion, turning to amusement. He turned around to face Abby, who wore a grin on her face. She laughed.  
  
"What is this?" he asked, confused.  
  
"Gotcha," Abby said, playfully hitting his shoulder. He turned to face the other people in the room. Susan was there, Neela too, and Gallant, Luka, Lydia, Randi, Sam, Chuny, Malik, among others. All were smiling profusely at him. Carter looked at Chuny and Randi, who were bringing out a small, circular cake, with the words 'Goodbye Grace' etched in frosting on the top. Reading this, the little girl smiled widely. She tugged on Carter's shirt, indicating that she wanted to be let down.  
  
"What it this?" Carter asked, carefully setting Grace on her feet.  
  
"This," said Susan, "is Grace Knight's going-away party." Carter laughed.  
  
"You all like to have parties, don't you?" They just smiled at him, some chuckling.  
  
"Yeah, Lydia actually pulled this one together pretty fast, too."  
  
"Whose idea was this?"  
  
"It was mostly Abby and Susan," Lydia said. Just then, Malik hit a button on the radio and it began to play music.  
  
"Come on, let's get this party started!"  
  
And so it was. The cake was cut and handed around, the stereo played "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun," people were dancing, and everybody was having a good time. Grace seemed thrilled by the attention, graciously accepting the wishes from others to get well, have a safe trip, and come back to visit soon. The party was a pleasant surprise for both Grace and Carter, and Grace got a nice surprise when, ten minutes later, Elizabeth came into the lounge.  
  
"Elizabeth!" Grace exclaimed, beaming. Elizabeth smiled at her, making her way over to where the child was sitting.  
  
"Hello, Grace."  
  
"I'm glad you came," she said joyfully. "You should have some cake," she suggested.  
  
"Is it good?"  
  
"The best that the ER can whip up," Carter said. "Hi Elizabeth."  
  
"Hi Carter. So where can I find this cake?"  
  
"It's over there, on the counter, with the coffee." She soon returned with her own slice of the cake. She sat down near the little girl.  
  
"So how long have you known about this little party?" Carter asked Elizabeth. She put a forkful of cake in her mouth and chewed on it thoughtfully.  
  
"Only about five hours. It was planned on a dime, if at all." Carter nodded. Then, he heard Malik turn down the music slightly, and the room quieted. People looked at him expectantly.  
  
"Speech!" called Susan and Abby in unison. A few of the people around them laughed, others echoed the cry. Carter stood up, obliging. He cleared his throat awkwardly.  
  
"Um--" he began, hesitating. "I just want to say, thank you all for doing this." He rested his hand lightly on Grace's shoulder. "I know that you have heard the rumors, and I wanted to let you know, they are true." He looked over at the smiling, not-so-stunned crowd of people. "Thanks again."  
  
"Congrats, Carter," Chuny said. A paroxysm of applause and cheering burst from the people from the ER, and Carter couldn't help but smile.  
  
"Thank you, thank you," he said, calming their applause. The clapping quieted. Malik was about to start the music up again, when Abby shot him a look and he lifted his hand from the dial. Everyone was talking quietly as Abby and Susan went to their lockers, bringing out a gift bag and a small, rectangular package, respectively. They set the gifts in front of Grace, who's eyes grew wide.  
  
"Those are for me?" she asked incredulously. Susan nodded.  
  
"Yes, those are from all of us." Grace bit her bottom lip, holding back a question.  
  
"Umm...Could I open them?" A few people chuckled at this.  
  
"Of course you can." Grace beamed as she held the gift bag, and very much like a young child would do, she took the tissue paper out of the bag, until she got to the bottom.  
  
About eighteen of the doctors and nurses had gotten together and each given a little bit of money toward the cause, and decided that Grace needed clothes for the trip home, because they had shredded hers when she first came into the hospital. Grace carefully lifted a dress out of the bag, gazing at it, her mouth half-open, and spread it on the table. It was a periwinkle blue dress, a pique polo-style dress with short sleeves and a tiny daisy embroidered over the breast.  
  
"Oh, wow, it's so pretty!" Grace said, smiling. "Thank you all so much!"  
  
"You're welcome."  
  
"That's not all," Lydia said to her in a gentle voice. "We all signed this card for you, so you can remember us." She produced a greeting card from behind her back. Susan handed the second package, and small, rectangular one wrapped in tissue paper, to the child carefully.  
  
"Open that one, too, but be careful so that it doesn't break." Grace nodded, understanding. She carefully tore the paper off of the gift, revealing a polished wooden photo frame. Inside it was a picture.  
  
It was an old picture, from years and years ago. Carter saw, looking over Grace's shoulder, himself as a young doctor, without a beard, standing next to a smiling Lucy. Her hair was down, and Carter was smiling, too. Both held glasses of soda, as a sort of toast to the camera. It was from the day, he remembered, that she had finished her first ER rotation. They had been celebrating.  
  
Grace smiled. Her face lit up, and the others knew that she had appreciated this gift a great deal.  
  
"Thank you so much," she said happily. "This is my second picture with her in it, and my dad--" her eyes darted toward Carter, as if almost afraid to say that to all of the other people around. Carter nodded reassuringly. "My dad is also in it, so I can have the two of them in one place again!"  
  
Carter smiled and chuckled along with the others, but he couldn't help feeling a little heartache inside. Now, the only place that he and Lucy could be together was in the photographs and memories of long ago. Nevertheless, it was still reassuring.  
  
He thought of a poem that he had read some odd years ago in high school. The poem was Ode on a Grecian Urn, John Keats. He had never really understood the meaning of the poem, really, but now he mused over the point. In that picture, of him and Lucy together, they were there forever, always there, always together. [If the readers haven't read the poem, I recommend that you do. You'll understand.]  
  
Carter looked down at his daughter. Grace sat with such a rapturous expression on her face that Carter knew she was thankful beyond words for the kindness of the ER staff. All that she could do was smile, but the others understood.  
  
Just then, Jerry stuck his head into the lounge.  
  
"Sorry to break up the party, but we've got an MVA coming in, two major, one minor. We need you all on the floor." The energized atmosphere of the room died quickly, as everyone sat. Jerry informed them that the ETA would be six minutes, so they had that time to prep the trauma rooms, etc.  
  
"You need me?" Carter asked, ready to jump for a pair of scrubs if in fact he was needed. Susan shook her head.  
  
"We'll give you a call if we do," she said, standing up. She made her way around the now-chattering people over to where Grace sat, and squatted down, going to her level. "Bye, honey," she said to the child, touching her shoulder. "Good luck."  
  
"Bye, thanks." Carter saw Susan throw a loving look at the child before pushing the door open and reentering the world.  
  
"See you, kiddo," Carter heard Abby tell Grace. He turned his head to find that she had followed Susan's example, and gave the child a gentle hug.  
  
"Bye, Abby," she said. Carter could tell that she was upset about leaving already.  
  
"Come back and see us, will you?" Abby asked, smiling. She straightened up. Grace nodded at her, looking hopefully at Carter. He gave a small smile. Grace turned back to Abby, beaming.  
  
"Definitely," she said enthusiastically. Abby smiled, too. Carter knew that she couldn't help it; the mood was contagious.  
  
The rest of the staff members in the room decided to leave then, too, and the number of people there dwindled. Elizabeth was the last to say goodbye. She wrapped the small child in a warm hug, touching her hair.  
  
"Goodbye, sweetheart," she said. It was this good-bye which seemed to be hurting Grace the most. She had really taken a liking to Elizabeth, and it would be hard for them to say goodbye.  
  
"Bye, Elizabeth," she said, putting her arms around Elizabeth's neck. "I'll miss you a lot."  
  
"I'll miss you, too, dear, but I can give you my address at home and we can write to each other. That will be okay, won't it?" Unconvinced, the child nodded slowly in agreement.  
  
"Okay," she said in a small voice. They broke from their embrace, and Carter suddenly felt rather awkward, standing there and watching him. Elizabeth gave Grace a loving look, and, bidding a goodbye with her promising to come and see Grace before she left for good, she swept out of the doors, mass of red curls flying behind her.  
  
Now alone in the room, Carter sat with Grace quietly for a moment. They looked at each other, Grace's clear blue eyes seeming to pierce into Carter's own brown ones. Carter gently lay a hand on her shoulder, comfortingly, reassuringly. Grace laid her own head down onto Carter's chest, exhaling softly in a gentle sigh. Carter put his arms around her. They sat there like that for a few minutes, savoring the time that they could be together. Carter was reminded of another gentle embrace like this, up on the roof of the hospital and smiled, enjoying the moment.  
  
Three short hours later, Carter's pager beeped in a steady, pulsating rhythm. Glancing down at the device, he saw that the number was that of the ER. He got up to leave, Grace throwing him a look. The look was a pitiful one, really, clearly an I-know-that-that-woman-is-here-to-get-me look. Carter tried to give her a small smile, but his facial nerves seemed numb, and all he could do was touch her comfortingly on the shoulder, before walking out the door.  
  
As he crossed the corridor to the elevator, he felt numb inside, devoid of all feeling. He knew what waited at the other end of the short journey, he knew that the woman must be here now. He could not ignore the inevitable. Though his arms felt like limp spaghetti, and his feet appeared to be moving themselves down the familiar path to the ER, he resolved to put up a strong appearance for the woman. He did, after all, want to make a good impression.  
  
He forced back control of his limbs, and straightened his shoulders. All too soon, the elevator had arrived and opened its doors to the chaos of the emergency room that he knew so well. Trying to act nonchalant, he crossed the area to the admit desk, and saw Jerry still there, trying to blow a bubble with his chewing gum. She caught sight of him as well.  
  
"Somebody paged me to the ER," he said, hoping for a clue from him. He nodded at him, jerking his head toward Chairs.  
  
"Got a woman here, wants to see you," he told Carter, standing abruptly and aborted his futile attempts at blowing a bubble with the gum when Carter gave him a look. Approaching the chairs area, he glanced around.  
  
"Who is it?"  
  
"Last name Goetz, from some children's services bureau." Carter nodded at this news, not surprised, but not quite ready for it either. He stood out in front of the chairs and swept his gaze over the area where a couple of dozen people sat, in their varying degrees of illness, waiting to be seen by a doctor.  
  
"Ms. Goetz?" he called, craning his neck and raising his voice slightly to be sure he was heard.  
  
A woman stood up from her seat near the back of the room. She was a kind- looking woman, wearing a cream-colored pant suit and a purple blouse underneath. Her smooth auburn hair was swept up in a clip, and a pair of glasses was set on her nose. She could not have been more than 35 years old. When she stood, she picked up a sleek briefcase and a brown cardboard box hoisting it into her arms. She approached Carter, very businesslike in her actions.  
  
"Dr. Carter?"  
  
8  
  
That's all for this one! Sorry again that it took so long to update, but my exams are nearing, and so I have had a lot of studying to do.  
  
So...next chapter, you all get to find out what is in the mystery box that Barbara left to him, and you will see the good-bye when Grace and Carter part for a time.  
  
A REVIEWER SHOUT-OUT:  
  
Psalm57: Wow, I love your enthusiasm! I love that psalm, btw. Anyways, where to begin? I am only 14 (15 in June), so I am far from med school, however, my dad is a doctor, and I volunteer sometimes, in the ER and rarely in the ICU where he works. I only deliver the mail, run stuff to the lab, run memos between floors, stuff like that, but I do pick it up. You might think I am a nut, but when I watch ER and there is a drug, test, etc. that I don't know, I look it up or ask someone. That way, I learn a little bit. In ch5, when Grace says she knows the spleen, she's lying. Like, my cousin knows that we have spleens, but not what they do. That sort of thing. Thank you sooo much for reviewing! Stay tuned. E-mail me w/ any more questions.  
  
Until then, loyal readers, keep up the reviews, and relax. Summer is starting, after all!  
  
Snapdragon 


	16. Parting

DISCLAIMER: I don't own anything that you recognize.  
  
After an extremely long wait (I need to apologize endlessly for that, there's an explanation at the end of the chapter), here's chapter 16!!!  
  
SAVING GRACE--CHAPTER SIXTEEN  
  
"Yes," Carter said, finding his voice just in time. He politely stretched out his hand to her, and she shook it.  
  
"Laura Goetz," she introduced herself. "Summit County Children's Services." Carter nodded; he knew who she was already.  
  
"John Carter, thank you for coming here." Ms. Goetz nodded, smiling amicably.  
  
"Well," she began, shifting the weight of the box and briefcase to keep her balance, "I was told to deliver this box to you, apparently someone's talked to you about it already, though." Carter nodded.  
  
"Yes, thank you," he said, and he lifted the box out of the woman's arms. It was moderate in weight, not too heavy, but not exactly feather-light either. Ms. Goetz seemed relieved to have the weight out of her arms, and straightened her posture a bit.  
  
Carter led her back to the lounge, where he dropped the box off before heading up to see Grace. Afraid that someone would go rooting through it, he shoved it behind one of the couches. As it was taped securely shut, he didn't worry too much; he would know if the tape was tampered with.  
  
"So where's Miss Knight?" Goetz asked, adjusting her glasses. Carter held the door to the lounge open for her and she walked out, stopping to wait for him to lead the way.  
  
"She's up on the pediatric section of the hospital," he told her, somewhat reluctantly. He stood stalwart for a moment, arms crossed over his chest. The woman raised her eyebrows.  
  
"Would you show me?" she asked slowly, as if he wouldn't understand her if she spoke otherwise. Carter, now slightly annoyed, shrugged his shoulders a fraction of an inch.  
  
"Sure," he said, leading the way across the hectic ER and toward the elevator. The doors closed on them, and Carter jammed his finger into the '5' button, leaning back on the wall of the elevator. He took the opportunity to observe Ms. Goetz.  
  
She stood in front of him, tapping her foot in an impatient manner. She seemed genuinely kind to him, but he still resented that she was going to be leaving to take Grace back to Ohio. Away from him.  
  
The elevator halted at the fifth floor and the doors opened. Again, the woman stepped out and to the side, waiting for Carter to show her the way to the right room. He walked down the familiar corridor for what seemed like the 50th time in the last two weeks. He found the room without hesitation and pushed open the door.  
  
"Hi Dr. Car--" Grace started with a grin. Her face fell unbelievably quickly, though, when she saw Ms. Goetz walk in behind him. Carter could tell that the child was uncomfortable. Still sitting on her bed, crayon and paper in hand, dressed in the famiiar pink hospital gown, her eyes had a slightly pleading look to them.  
  
"Grace," Carter began, taking a breath. He crossed the room and sat on her bed, laying a hand on her shoulder in what he hoped was a comforting way. "I want you to meet Ms. Goetz. She's from social services." Ms. Goetz stepped closer to the child.  
  
"Hi, Grace," she said,crouching down so that she was at eye-level with the child. "I am Laura Goetz, but you can call me Miss Laura." She said all of this with a friendly manner.  
  
Grace, not being her usual ebullient self, looked at the woman skepticaly. Instead, she turned to Carter with question in her eyes, as if she was not sure that this woman could be trusted. Carter gave her a small, encouraging nod. Looking still askance at the strange woman, Grace, somewhat unwillingly, extended her right hand.  
  
"Grace Knight," she said, shaking the woman's hand. Carter smiled at her. She withdrew her hand quickly. There was a very awkward pause.  
  
"So," Carter began slowly, "I guess that all that is left now is to get you out of this hospital, Grace."  
  
"Okay," she said, half-heartedly. Carter nodded encouragingly.  
  
"Okay," he echoed. "I'll just get a nurse up here and you will be out before you know it.  
  
Indeed, much faster than he would have chosen, Holly was up to the pedes floor, filling out a dispo for the young girl. While Carter co-signed the chart and wrote her prescriptions, and Holly helped Grace to change her clothes after her IV had been removed.  
  
Carter, who had been standing in the hallway at the time, finished signing off on her chart with a flourish. He stared at the signature for a moment, not wanting what he had done to fully sink in. Grace was really leaving.  
  
The thought, the reality, was further enfoced by the sight that met his eyes after he had reentered the room.  
  
Grace was sitting in the chair at the bedside, where Carter spent so many hours watching over her. Her legs, one of which was in a cast, dangled from where she sat, not long enough yet to reach all the way to the ground. Her blond hair was neatly combed and fell to just past her shoulders, hanging free. She wore the dress given to her by the staff at the party earlier. The purple knapsack sat, packed and ready for a journey, on the floor at the side of the chair.  
  
Carter couldn't stand the look that she had in her eyes then. A certain sadness filled the azure orbs; they almost plead out to him. Her eyes were round, like a puppy's, and there was no laughter in them now. She looked up at him as if it were her final moments.  
  
Carter knelt so that he was at eye-level with his daughter, resting a hand comfortingly on her arm. She met his gaze with hers, this time, though, Carter could not decipher the message in it. He exhaled quickly in a sort of soft sigh.  
  
"Grace," he began, but soon found his mind going blank. Unprepared for the moment, he did not know what to say. He took a deep breath. "I'll see you in no time," he continued, though not altogether certain in his words. "We'll be back together soon. Remember those things we talked about, the ones that I need to get sorted out before I see you again?"  
  
"Yes," came the small, quiet voice. Carter nodded.  
  
"As soon as that is done, I will come and tell you, okay?" Grace lowered her head slightly, perhaps in sadness, and nodded. A lock of her hair broke from behind her ear and fell in front of her face.  
  
"I still have to go, though," she said heavily, more as a statement than a question. Carter sighed.  
  
"Yeah," he said, the words weighing on his heart. Grace took in a sharp breath, her head hanging lower, as if she had altogether lost the will to hold it up.  
  
A ray of autumn sunlight fell on the child's face, sparkling as it illuminated a tiny teardrop making its way down her cheek. Carter's heart left him; he seemed not to be able to breathe. He hated to see his child in pain.  
  
"Hey," he said gently. "None of that, now." He gingerly pushed the stray hair out of her face, tucking it gently behind her ear. She lifted her chin up slowly, her eyes moist and sad.  
  
"I don't want to go," she said quietly, barely above a whisper, voice quivering. Carter held out his arms to her in a hug, and she threw her arms around her neck like she never wanted to let go. Carter knew that he didn't want her to.  
  
"I know, sweetheart," he said, stroking her hair softly. "I know, but you have to. I don't want you to go either." Grace sniffled, crying into his shoulder. Carter felt tears threatening in his own eyes, and blinked them back furiously. Father and daughter pulled out of their embrace. Grace wiped her tears away with the back of her hand.  
  
The social worker standing at the back of the room cleared her throat suddenly, making them both jump.  
  
"I'm sorry," she said, "but we need to go relatively soon, or else we will miss our flight." Carter stood, turning to face her, nodding.  
  
"Okay," he said. He swung his head around to look at Grace. She had dried her eyes and was sitting in the chair, pulling on and tying one of her shoes carefully. "She will be ready soon. She just needs to go to the bathroom and wash her face--" he raised his voice slightly to make sure that she had heard him, "--before she can be on her way." Ms. Goetz smiled slightly, nodding professionally.  
  
"Okay," she said. "Come on, Grace, you heard him." Grace pushed herself up, rather reluctantly, and put her crutches under her arms, making her way carefully over to the bathroom and closing the door behind her. Carter cleared his throat.  
  
"Oh, here are her meds," he handed the social worker a small envelope containing several white tablets. "For the pain, she can take one every four to six hours. That should last her the week, until the pain subsides on its own. In about five or six weeks, have her foster parents call us and we'll send over her medical records, so that she will be able to get that cast off of her leg."  
  
"I'll tell the Thompsons to call you, then, if there are any problems?" Carter nodded.  
  
"Yes, I believe you have my home phone number, and the number of the ER. You can reach me any time, day or night; don't hesitate if there are any problems at all," he told her. She nodded, adjusting her glasses.  
  
Grace emerged from the bathroom, her face clean and no longer pouting. Instead she seemed to be trying to block out her emotions, perhaps to make the parting easier. She hobbled over to where her backpack was lying, picked it up, and slung it over onto her back. The three of them, Carter's hand on Grace's shoulder, plodded out the door and down the hallway, toward the elevators.  
  
  
  
The social worker craned her neck, looking over her shoulder at Carter as they trudged up the sidewalk to the nearest intersection.  
  
"I'm going to flag down a cab to take us to the airport," she said simply. For an instant, her eyes got a strange glint in them; was it pity? Carter nodded, knowing that it was his last-minute warning. They stopped at a corner and Ms. Goetz stuck her hand out, briefcase dangling from the other.  
  
"Grace," Carter turned to the child, kneeling on one knee and placing his hand on her shoulder, "Miss Laura is going to get a car to take you and her to the airport so you can go back home to Ohio, okay?" Grace nodded, from what Carter could tell, somewhat reluctantly.  
  
A yellow taxicab appeared in front of them, and the social worker lowered her hand. She turned to Carter and gave him a look that clearly stated that they needed to go soon. He turned back to his daughter, gently brushing a strand of hair behind her ear and smoothing it with his hand.  
  
"I'll see you soon, I promise," he said softly to the child. She nodded, looking into his eyes. There was a short silence, and out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of Ms. Goetz gesturing at him, deciding to ignore her for the time being. "Be a good girl for Miss Laura, okay?"  
  
"Okay," she said in a tiny voice, boring into Carter's eyes.  
  
"Behave yourself," he added, with a hint of payfulness in his voice. The corners of Grace's mouth turned up in a shadow of a smile.  
  
"I will." Carter removed his hand from the little girl's shoulder, pushing himself up from the ground. He bent over and kissed her forehead gently.  
  
"I love you, sweetheart," he spoke softly. Grace gave a tiny smile.  
  
"I love you, too." Before he knew it, Grace had thrown her arms around his waist, as high as she could reach, and Carter kissed the top of her head and smoothed her hair again.  
  
The taxi honked its horn and Ms. Goetz, with a sligh look of panic from worrying about missing the flight back to Cleveland, waved at Grace from her seat inside of the car to hurry.  
  
Grace looked long and hard at Carter, as if she was committing his face to her memory. Carter saw the look in her bright blue eyes before she turned away toward the taxi. She lowered herself down onto the seat, handing the crutches wordlessly to the woman seated beside her. Grace buckled her seat belt, and pulled the door of the cab closed.  
  
All that Carter could do as she stepped away, as she closed the door, as the driver of the cab sped away down the busy Chicago seat, as the child pressed her nose against the window and watched, with round eyes, as he disappeared, all that he could do was stand there, abandoned on the sidewalk, as a lump gathered in his throat and the autumn wind swept a lonely leaf along the pavement in front of him, was stare after them.  
  
Carter didn't recall how long he had stood there after his daughter was swept away from him, like that leaf on the breeze. He didn't remember how long he had stood there, hands in his pockets, as a few stray rays of the sun's light fell upon his face. All he could remember was the feeling in the pit of his stomach, the center of his very heart: a strange sense of loss.  
  
Finally, he took his hands out of his pockets and turned back to the entrance into the hospital. As he walked through the doors, so many people stopped and he felt dozens of eyes fixing their gazes at him. He was suddenly how foolish his arms felt, swinging awkwardly back and forth at his sides. He stuffed his hands back into his pockets, carefully keeping his gaze focused on the door to the lounge.  
  
Once Carter had reached the safety of the lounge, he collapsed into a lumpy old armchair, a 'fwuump' noise issuing from it in protest. He massaged his forehead, trying to force the previous events to sink into his mind.  
  
Strange, he thought, that his life could change so much in an instant. He never would have been able to guess that one patient, one child, could have such a drasticeffect on his outlook. Two weeks ago, just two weeks, he wouldn't have been able to fathom it.  
  
On Lucy's birthday, her child--his child--was rushed into his life on a gurney. How ironic, he thought, laughing softly.  
  
Quick footsteps jolted him from the reverie.  
  
"Hey Carter," Abby said, in the softened tone that he himself used when speaking to a family with bad news. She hesitated, as if cautious that Carter's temper would flare up. It didn't. She came over and sat down in the couch across from him, crossing her legs.  
  
"Hey," he said, in a would-be-cheerful voice. "What's up?" She ignored the question.  
  
"So she's gone, then?" Carter nodded, looking up and meeting Abby's gaze.  
  
"Yeah," he siad. He cleared his throat. "The family lawyers are on it, though. I'm filing for adoption." Abby raised her eyebrows.  
  
"Wow," she said, seemingly surprised.  
  
"What, you didn't think that I was going to find out that I had a child and then let her go back hundreds of miles away?"  
  
"No, no, it's not that," she said quickly, "I think it's great." She gave him a small smile.  
  
There was a long silence. Abby uncrossed and re-crossed her legs, and Carter massaged his forehead, squeezing his eyes cloosed and then opening them again. She noticed his actions, and looked at him with a sort of worried concern.  
  
"Aren't you off?" she asked, frowning.  
  
"Yeah, just came to see that Grace was discharged safely."  
  
"You should go home, get some rest. You on tomorrow?"  
  
"The day after."  
  
"Great, so go home, take a hot shower, and go to sleep. You look like you could use some R & R." Carter nodded. She was right, he did want to get out of the hospital.  
  
"Yeah, I'll do that," he told her, rising from his seat. She gave him a small smile.  
  
"Good." There was a pause as Carter collected his bag and keys from his locker, and hoisted the box from behind the couch into his arms. Abby caught his eye, watching with raised eyebrows.  
  
"Just some stuff," he answered before she even got a chance to ask the questions. Looking as though she wasn't entirely satisfied with the answer, Abby nodded slowly, but seemed to decide to let it be. He shifted the weight of the box.  
  
"Okay," she said. Carter turned to walk out of the room.  
  
"Thanks, Abby, for all of your help with Grace," he said, throwing her a smile.  
  
"It was fun, I really like her. And don't thank me yet, I have a feeling that I will be babysitting her in the future," she told him, grinning. He gave a soft laugh.  
  
"See you later, Abby."  
  
"Bye, Carter."  
  
Some time later, Carter sat at his kitchen table, in his apartment, the box that the social worker had given to him earlier sitting in front of him. He wanted to open it, wanted to know its contents. He seized a pair of scissors from a drawer in the kitchen and held them in his hand, poised to strike. He hesitated.  
  
What would he find? The last time he had opened an unknown package, he had found out that he had a daughter. What mystery lied within the corrugation?  
  
Curiosity overcame apprehension, and Carter cut into the plastic tape securing the sides of the box with the edge of the scissors. As he inspected the sides, he noticed a tiny bit of handwriting near a corner in one of the sides.  
  
'John T. Carter."  
  
This must have been how they knew to send it to me, Carter thought, squinting at the tiny, perfectly written words. But what if the contents were not meant for him? That thought was chased out of his mind as quickly as it had appeared. Making sure that the flaps of the box were separated, he set the scissors down onto the table.  
  
Taking a breath, he edged his fingers under the heavy cardboard flaps of the package and lifted. A faint smell of cardboard and old paper issued in a puff of air from the inside of the box.  
  
All that he could see at first were pages of crumpled newspaper, probably used in packaging. Something in the box must be fragile, he thought. Carefully, he removed the densely packed wads of newspaper and tossed them aside. Shortly after, he found the first item.  
  
It was a brown manila envelope, the sort with a metal brad to close it. He pried open the metal with his fingers and pulled out several thick sheets of paper. He held them ini his hands for a moment, fingering the top sheet curiously.  
  
The top piece of paper was a birth certificate, the original, of which Carter had recieved a copy in the original letter. He looked over it, trying to take in the cursive writing filling in the blanks in black pen. There it was, he saw--his name written carefully in the space marked 'Father.'  
  
Setting the certificate of birth gingerly aside, he leafed through the other documents. There was an array of different papers. He saw the certificate for the Sacrament of Baptism, records from the preschool she attended, doctor's bills, hospital bills, dentist records, and even an achievement award filled out to Grace for being the first child to be able to read in her class. Carter smiled to himself, filling with a strange new sense of paternal pride as he set the award aside. Slipping the pages back inside the envelope, he laid it down on the table near the box.  
  
He looked back into the box and discovered more crumpled-up newspaper. He plucked a few out of the package and discovered a neatly wrapped item in smooth tissue paper. He lifted it out with his hand, surprised at the heavy weight of the thing. Unwrapping the tissue paper, he saw why it was so heavy.  
  
It was a small square of white plaster. Turning it over, Carter saw a tiny handprint on the front side imprinting the plaster. Very neatly below the hand, the name 'GRACE' was printed in steady, capital letters, probably by a teacher. On the back was the date, Grace's first year of preschool.  
  
Carter sat for a moment, marvelling at the size of the hand that had made the print. It was so small, but so perfect, he thought, as he ran his hand gently over it. re-wrapping it, he gently set the plaster handprint down on the table and turned back to the cardboard box in front of him.  
  
Carter lifted a thin sheet of tissue paper out of the box to reveal a sort of book. Examining it more closely, he saw that it was a photo album. He lifted the album out of the package and set it on the table in front of him. He gingerly lifted its lavender cover.  
  
The album was filled with photographs of Grace. He saw his daughter's first sonograms, which even with his knowlege could not understsand except that she was there. There she was on her birthday, her first real baby picture, red-faced, bald, and screaming, wrapped in a pink blanket. On the next page, Lucy was resting comfortably, hair slightly damp, holding her daughter in her arms and smiling joyfully.  
  
Time seemed to pass with each page that Carter turned. He saw Grace's first smile, first locks of hair growing. He noticed that her first strands of baby hair had been a light brown, and had lightened into blond later. Her eyes became a strong, clear blue.  
  
On the following page was his daughter's christening, Grace held placidly over a silver basin in a long, white gown as the priest prepared to pour water over her forehead. He saw Grace's first Christmas, in a tiny green satin dress with white trim, clutching a candy cane in her pudgy fist.  
  
Then the page was turned again and there was a photo of Lucy and Grace taken outside in the snowy months, probably shortly after the new year. Both were bundled in warm clothes, pink-faced from the cold and smiling. On the facing page was a professionally taken photograph of mother and daughter, wearing soft smiles and a shade of blue that brought out their identical blue eyes. The photo was breathtaking.  
  
After a moment, Carter realized sadly that this was the last picture that Lucy took together with her daughter.  
  
Sure enough, the remaining photos were ones of Grace by herself, or else taken with Barbara Knight or another family friend. He saw the first Easter egg hunt, Grace in her Sunday dress clutching a basket in her tiny hands. photographs later was Grace's first swim, in a purple swimsuit with water wings on both arms and Barbara there supporting her.  
  
Then there was her first birthday, but Carter noticed that Lucy was ominously absent from the scene. Things didn't seem the same without her there. Still, though, the pictures continued to be taken, as if Barbara hadn't wanted Carter to miss one moment of his daughter's growing up.  
  
The entire photo album was devoted to Grace's first year and a half of life. After he had viewed the last photograph (Grace's second Christmas), he closed the book with gentle hands and reached, once again toward the box on the kitchen table. From its bottom, he pulled out one last photo album.  
  
Turning the pages slightly faster this time, he saw his daughter really begin to grow up. He saw her second birthday, summer days at a beach, first winter romp in the snow, third birthday, first day of preschool, trick-or-treating in a princess costume. The last photo in the album was a more current one. It depicted Grace in a blue swimsuit buiding a sandcastle. Her hair was in a ponytail, and she smiled as she stuck a pink wildflower into the castle for decoration.  
  
That was the last photograph. Carter knew that no more had been taken for the album, because its creator was no longer around to do that. Sighing, he closed the second book and set it on the table next to the first. The now-empty cardboard box was taken from atop the table and set onto the linoleum floor of the kitchen.  
  
Carter carefully deposited the manila envelope of documents into a drawer of his desk in the living area. The plaster cast of Grace's handprint went on a shelf near the front door, in between photos of his grandmother and parents. Lastly, the photo albums were carried into his bedroom and set carefully onto the small shelf that served as a bookcase. Carter turned on the bedside lamp and sat on the edge of his bed.  
  
He rose after a moment, and walked over to the shelf, removing one of the photo albums. He flipped through it, and carefully removed a photo.  
  
It was one of his favorites. She was sitting on the grass outdoors, probably in the backyard of the house in Ohio. She wore a light-pink dress with darker flowers embroidered on the scalloped collar, little white sneakers and a tiny ribbon in her har. She must have been around four years old; her eyes seemed to sparkle with childhood innocence. In her hand she held a single white iris, probably picked from a garden nearby.  
  
Gingerly, Carter set the photograph on his bedside table, propping it up against the lamp. He looked at it for a moment, satisfied.  
  
Later that night, Carter put on his pajamas and brushed his teeth before getting into bed. As he shut off the light, he looked at the picture of his daughter.  
  
It would be the first thing that he saw the next morning, and the last thing before going to sleep, that day, and the next, and the next.........  
  
Okay! So that's chapter 16. I really hope it wasn't too disappointing. I had awful writers block during it, b/c I knew what I wanted to write, but not how to write it.  
  
I'd also like to apologize for how long it took me to get this one up. After my exams, my brother went and got me and my sister banned from the internet for a week, and after that it was off to Boston for two weeks for a leadership conference (on medicine, what else?). That was totally awesome, definitely the highlight of my summer so far. After I got back, I had to finish writing this, and the rest is history.  
  
Again, sorry for the delay. I'm not posting reviewer shout-outs (sorry), but I'm gonna do double after the next chapter.  
  
Thanks for understanding  
  
Snapdragon 


	17. Waiting

DISCLAIMER: I oWn NoThInG!!! Well, I own Grace, but I'm just borrowing the others for the sake of the story.  
  
Up after another long wait, here's chapter 17. It's not as long as some of the others, but it'll do for now. I tried to incorporate more humor into this one, and there's also some more medical stuff too. A twist at the end. What is it? Read to find out!

* * *

SAVING GRACE- CHAPTER 17

* * *

Two days and a dozen telephone calls later, Carter was back to working the graveyard shift at County General's ER.  
  
It had been a long two days for him; the first time in two weeks that he hadn't talked to Grace for a day. One day turned into two, and by the sunset of that second day, when he had awoken to get to the ER for the night shift, Carter realized that getting custody of and adopting his daughter would be harder and take longer than he had originally thought. Numerous phone calls had been made, to Gamma and to Ralph Conway, the family attorney, mostly. The two of them in tandem were working at the issue, though they had refused Carter's desire to help out himself.  
  
"She's my daughter, and I want to help get her back here!" he had exclaimed during a visit to the Carter family mansion for an afternoon luncheon with his grandmother.  
  
"And I don't want you to worry, John," Gamma had replied. "We will take care of everything, and Grace will be back sooner than you think." As Gamma took another sip of her iced tea, Carter knew that her decision had been made, and was irreversible.  
  
Conway had been invaluable, though. The day after Grace left, he had sat down with him at a local coffeehouse. There they discussed plans, and Conway had done a preliminary outline of the papers that Carter would need to get his daughter back. Conway promised to contact him ASAP to sign papers and fax them to SCCS for consideration. He had signed the papers the very next day at his grandmother's house.  
  
So as he spun the combination to his locker at work, all he could do was wait for news, for something that he could do himself to help in any way that he could find.  
  
But for now, it was back to work in the ER, he thought as he slid on his white coat and slammed the door of his locker shut. The metal clanged, so much so that Carter didn't hear the door to the lounge open, and therefore was surprised to find that, when he turned around, he wasn't alone.  
  
"Hey Carter," Chuny greeted him, pouring herself a cup of coffee. "You working the graveyard shift too?" She was smirking at him slightly, with the expression of someone who was trying hard not to laugh.  
  
"Yes," Carter answered slowly. Chuny continued to hold her expression. He couldn't stand it. "What, Chuny?"  
  
Chuny tried hard to erase the smirk from her face; she attempted to look innocent. She failed miserably.  
  
"Oh, nothing," she lied, turning toward the counter away from him, Carter suspected, to hide her smirk.  
  
"What, Chuny?" he repeated, slightly louder and more slowly, in the tone that one might use to speak to a slightly deaf person. She turned around, still smirking slightly. She shrugged playfully.  
  
"I told you so," she said, laughing softly, obviously trying to keep her laughter inside. This caused her hands to shake so much that some of her coffee began to slosh over the sides of the mug. She saw that he didn't understand and rolled her eyes.  
  
"What?" he asked.  
  
"Exam six, I told you so."  
  
"Oh," he said, understanding what she had meant. He cleared his throat, but couldn't think of an adequate response. "Oh," he said again, aware that he sounded like an idiot.  
  
"Yeah," Chuny said in an omniscient sort of voice, finishing the dregs of her coffee and setting the cup into the sink. Carter fought the sudden urge to roll his eyes. Not sure what exactly he was supposed to say to that, he turned away and walked out of the lounge. He could almost feel Chuny still smirking behind him, but chose to ignore her for the time being.  
  
"Any interesting cases for me tonight, Frank?" he asked the desk clerk. Carter raised his eyebrow while Frank finished chewing the bite of donut in his mouth. He shrugged.  
  
"How should I know?"  
  
"Okay, then," Carter swept past him toward where the charts were. Glancing to the side to see that Weaver wasn't around, he sifted through the series of clipboards, finally extracting one.  
  
"What've you got there, Carter?" Susan appeared at his shoulder, peering down at the chart that he held in his hands.  
  
"Thought I'd start off the graveyard shift with a nice, easy case of the croup, seeing as there really aren't any interesting cases in there."  
  
"You've been chart-picking again, Carter. Tsk tsk tsk," she scolded him playfully. He smiled.  
  
"Who, me? Never."  
  
"Right. That's okay, I won't Weaver on you," Susan said as she erased a name from the board with her hand. Carter snorted quietly under his breath and put his patient up on the board. He stepped over into chairs, where the usual evening crowd sat and waited for medical attention.  
  
"Kelly Chase," he said loudly over the murmuring crowd, reading the name off of the chart. A Black man stood up, hoisting his seven-year-old daughter onto his hip and following Carter as he led them into an exam room.  
  
The night shift went as night shifts typically do, with its fair share of drunks dropped off in the ER for no particular reason. For once, there were no MVAs or bad traumas to deal with, so it was a relatively relaxing night.  
  
Around four in the morning, the waiting room was quiet, and the ER staff was hanging out by the Admitting desk. Carter sat in an office chair near the radio and fiddled with a sharpened pencil absentmindedly.  
  
"I feel deaf," Susan said suddenly from her stool at the counter. Carter looked up.  
  
"What?" he asked.  
  
"I feel like I've gone deaf, it's so quiet here."  
  
"Yeah, it's great, isn't it?" Chuny put in from the seat next to Susan.  
  
"The last of the drunks is in Curtain 2 with a banana bag," Haleh said from a chair at the desk across from Carter. "Even if he's babbling, we can't hear him."  
  
"Amen," said Malik. He sat in a wheelchair, practicing balancing the chair on the two back wheels.  
  
"Well I don't like it," Susan said. "It's too abnormal. Carter, would you put the radio on?" Carter nodded, setting down the pencil.  
  
"No problem." He flipped on the FM radio and turned up the volume moderately. An older song played, something from the 50's or some other era that Carter didn't recognize. "Better?"  
  
"Thanks," Susan nodded. Chuny turned her head suddenly toward the doors to the ambulance bay, ponytail swinging slightly as she did. She turned back to them.  
  
"We should do something," she said, looking around at them.  
  
"Like what?" Malik asked her. His concentration seemed to have lapsed, and the wheelchair went over backwards, Malik toppling out of it and the chair crashing onto the floor. There was a chorus of hearty laughter from those present as Malik pushed himself up off of the floor. He picked the wheelchair back up and sat in it, this time refraining from the acrobatics.  
  
"We should play a game," Chuny said after the laughter had subsided.  
  
"A game," Carter said blankly. What did she have in mind, charades?  
  
"What sort of game?" Susan asked her, folding her hands in her lap.  
  
"I dunno." There was a silence. Everyone seemed to be thinking.  
  
"I know," said Malik, rolling the wheelchair closer to them. "This is a game we played once as an icebreaker in nursing school--"  
  
"No!" Susan groaned. "I hate icebreakers!"  
  
I'm with you," Carter told Susan. "Those things are so dumb, I had way too many of them in my life."  
  
"Dude, hear me out," Malik said. "This is a fun one, I promise. All you have to do is think of a catch phrase. Any one. Like...okay, mine is gonna be the Mickey D's one, 'I'm lovin' it.'" Everyone looked at him as if he had spinach in his teeth. "Oh, come on, it gets better. Just think of one, and remember it." They sat for a moment, trying to think.  
  
"I think I've got one," Haleh said.  
  
"Spit it out."  
  
"How about that old Pringles commercial, 'Once you pop, the fun don't stop?" Malik snorted.  
  
"That's a good one. How about you, Chuny?"  
  
"I'm gonna use that Skittles one, 'Taste the rainbow.' You next, Carter."  
  
"Okay," Carter said, "Mine's going to be the Chevy one, 'Like a rock,' because I'm drawing a blank here." They all turned to look at Susan, who had a small crease in her forehead from trying to come up with something.  
  
"Susan?"  
  
"Alright, alright," she said, slightly frustrated. "'Good to the last drop,' Maxwell House Coffee or some coffee thing." By this time, Malik was struggling to keep from rolling on the ground in laughter.  
  
"Okay," he said, calming slightly. "Now is the fun part. We are going to go around the circle now, starting with Chuny, and you are going to repeat the commercial catchphrase that you chose. Only this time, you are going to add in the phrase 'In my pants' at the end." Carter laughed and shook his head in disbelief. Susan groaned and covered her face with her hands. "Mine, for example, is I'm lovin' it in my pants." They all laughed, somewhat shocked at how dirty an icebreaker could be.  
  
"Okay," Chuny said. "I'm starting then? Here goes: Taste the rainbow in my pants." There was a lot of jovial laughter, and it was Carter's turn.  
  
"Like a rock in my pants," he said, cracking a smile while everyone else roared with laughter.  
  
"Geez, Carter," Chuny remarked, grinning. She turned to Haleh. "Haleh?"  
  
"Once you pop, the fun don't stop iin my pants." There was a peal of laughter, and Chuny actually had to wipe a tear out of her eye because she laughed so hard.  
  
"Whoa, slow down there Haleh," Malik choked out, convulsing with laughter.  
  
Susan, meanwhile, had her hands over her face again.  
  
"Your turn, Susan."  
  
"No way!"  
  
"You have to, we all did." She removed her hands and put them in her lap.  
  
"Okay, okay," she began. "Good to the last drop in my pants." Even she had to laugh at this one.  
  
Malik actually lost his balance and toppled out of the wheelchair a second time, clutching his stomach, because he was laughing so hard. Carter bent over and put his hands on his knees, and a constant river of tears was streaming down Chuny's face. Carter handed her a tissue.  
  
"Thanks, Carter," she choked out, wiping her eyes. "Oh, man, that was great."  
  
"See, icebreakers can be fun!"  
  
Morning dawned cool and fresh as the sun cast its first rays of light onto the lake as Carter watched from the roof of the hospital, clutching a cup of coffee in his hand. Eight o'clock came and went, and he was soon packing up and getting ready to leave County. He slung the bag over his shoulder and started to head out of the double doors. As he started out, he was nearly flattened by two paramedics as they rolled a gurney into the hospital.  
  
"What've we got?" Carter asked urgently, immediately throwing his things behind the Admitting desk and hurrying alongside the gurney.  
  
"26-year-old male, collapsed in the park after his morning jog, SOB and pleuritic chest pain. We gave him O2 in the rig, BP's 84/54, resps 28," the paramedic fired as they wheeled the man into Trauma 2. Carter immediately snapped on a pair of gloves.  
  
"What's your name, sir?" he asked the conscious man.  
  
"Robert Nevins," he replied, with labored breaths. Carter whipped out his stethoscope and pressed it to the man's chest.  
  
"Could you take a couple of breaths for me?" Mr. Nevins did so, and Carter listened.  
  
"I'm not getting breath sounds on the left," he said. "I need a chest x- ray, CBC, lytes, and a blood gas. Start a large-bore IV of saline, wide open, and spin a crit."  
  
"Pulse 110, temp 98.4," Haleh said, recording the findings on the patient chart in her hands. Carter nodded. A portable x-ray arrived with a technician and shot the films quickly.  
  
"Good, both normal," he moved over closer to the patient. "Mr. Nevins, I need to listen to your lungs through the back. Can you sit up?" The tall man nodded, and Yosh helped him to sit up and lean over. Carter rested his stethoscope on the left side of the man's back and tapped on his skin.  
  
"What is it?"  
  
"Hyperresonance on percussion, left hemithorax," Carter said. "We need to intubate, get me a number 8 French, 3 of etomidate, 120 of sux," he said, preparing for the intubation.  
  
"What is it, Doc?" Mr. Nevins gasped from the bed. Carter took the ET tube and applicator from Yosh.  
  
"Mr. Nevins, I believe that you have a condition called tension pneumothorax, which is where an air leak in your lung has caused it to collapse. I'm going to give you some medicine to put you to sleep, and when you wake up there will be a tube in your throat helping you breathe. You won't be able to talk." The man's eyes closed at the effect of the drugs and Carter intubated without a problem.  
  
"Chest films are back." Carter took them and held it up to the light.  
  
"Tracheal, mediastinal shifts to the right, diaphragm low and flattened, it's a tension pneumo alright," he said, handing the x-ray back to a nurse and continuing with the patient.  
  
"Carter," Haleh said, "PO2 is low, pulse ox falling."  
  
"We need a chest tube, get me a tray, Yosh," he said, hurriedly getting into a trauma gown and back to the patient, where the tray was waiting. He poured betadine on the chest to sterilize, and inserted a guide wire. "Third intercostal space at the midclavicular line..." he muttered to himself. "And I'm in."  
  
"Nice one, Carter," Yosh said as Mr. Nevins' pulse ox began to rise. Carter nodded.  
  
"Haleh, call ICU and get this guy admitted, he's gonna need to stay for a couple of days," He said, pulling off his gloves and gown and getting out of the trauma room. He smiled to himself, savoring the victory.  
  
"Carter," Haleh shouted from down the hall. "You forgot to sign off on the tension pneumo guy." Carter groaned and headed down into Trauma 2. He rounded the corner and Haleh shoved the chart into his hands. Carter scribbled something that may have looked like his name on the chart and tucked the pen back into his pocket.  
  
"Thanks, Haleh," he said over his shoulder. He wandered back to the Admit desk and retrieved his things, preparing to go out the door when another voice made him turn back.  
  
"Dr. Carter, I have a call for you on line 1," Jerry told him, holding his hand over the receiver. Carter groaned.  
  
"I'm off, Jerry, I was off an hour ago."  
  
"It's some lawyer, Conway, says he knows you." Carter adjusted his bag on his shoulder and nodded, turning back into the Admit area.  
  
"Thanks, Jerry, I'll take it in the lounge," he said, heading into the lounge and dumping his things onto a nearby couch and grabbing the phone off of its base on the wall.  
  
"John Carter," he said into the receiver.  
  
"Dr. Carter, Ralph Conway," came the voice on the other end of the line.  
  
"You wanted to speak to me?"  
  
"Yes," came the answer. "Sorry I had to call you at work, but I couldn't reach you at home.  
  
"No problem, what's up?" he asked. Hopefully the news he had to share was good news.  
  
"We've run into a bit of a speed bump." Carter's face fell.  
  
"What? What is it?" He heard a very small sigh at the other end of the line.  
  
"I got a fax from Summit County Child Services last night, just got it into my hands a couple of minutes ago," he explained. He seemed to be dancing around the issue, and Carter didn't like it at all.  
  
"And...?" Carter asked. There was a short pause.  
  
"Something came up while they were running a background check on you."  
  
"What?" Carter wracked his brain quickly. What was it that could have come up to slow the adoption process? Surely, it could be his job, or his single marital status, but that wouldn't really be something to see in a background check.  
  
"John, why didn't you say anything about your drug addiction?" Carter's mouth dropped open slightly, aghast. He had forgotten about that, figuring that since it was years ago, and he had gotten help, it wouldn't have factored into the ordeal anyway.  
  
He thought wrong.  
  
"I-it slipped my mind," he answered honestly, rubbing his forehead. There was a very pregnant pause. Carter's thought were whirling inside of his mind. What would he do? Would they still let him adopt Grace? He had been clean for four years, would that count for anything?  
  
He had so many questions and things to say that he was speechless.  
  
"Will it affect the adoption process?" he asked, trying as hard as he could to keep the worry out of his voice. He heard a groan from the other end of the line.  
  
"Yes, it will, I'm afraid. The SCCS office faxed me over the inquiry this morning. They found the drug addiction in your record, and therefore they can't let you adopt Grace as soon as you wanted."  
  
"But I can still get her, right?"  
  
"I don't know," said the lawyer in his gruff voice. "We should be able to work something out, but there is a very good chance that it will take much longer than we expected."  
  
Carter was listening, but the words seemed to be echoing inside of his head. He might not be able to get his daughter back after all. How was Grace going to react to this, after he had promised her that she could come back to him?  
  
His thoughts were interrupted momentarily when the door creaked open and Kerry came into the room. She caught sight of him on the phone and turned her head, heading to the coffee pot. Carter turned his attention back to the telephone conversation.  
  
"How-how much longer?" Carter asked uncertainly.  
  
"I'm not entirely sure, but it could be months, and there will probably be a hearing involved, and an investigation..." he trailed off. Carter groaned.  
  
"An investigation of what?" he asked, sounding both worried and surprised.  
  
"The addiction itself, the actions you performed under the effects, the length, your stay at the rehab center, the list could go on." Carter sank into the nearest chair, massaging his forehead. This was going to be a lot worse than he had ever thought. "The SCCS will probably send a couple of reps over to the hospital where you work, and interview some of your co- workers, especially those above you administratively."  
  
"Interview?" Carter asked blankly.  
  
He was now painfully aware that Kerry was staring at him. He turned his back to her, listening to Conway's answer.  
  
"Asking some basic questions concerning your health, ability to handle and care for a child, that sort of thing. Those people, of course, who knew you at the time that you were addicted to narcotics will be asked about the circumstances surrounding the addiction."  
  
"I know the circumstances!" Carter exclaimed, perhaps louder than was necessary. He felt an anger building up in his chest, putting pressure on him from the inside. "I was stabbed, for God's sake! Are they even going to care about that?"  
  
He no longer cared that Kerry was in the room, listening to his every word.  
  
"There is a chance that they won't. These people usually aren't incredibly sympathetic to circumstances."  
  
"Damn it!?" he cursed under his breath. "So what do I do?"  
  
"All that you can do now," Conway began, "is wait. I'm going to make some phone calls and see what I can come up with. There has got to be a way to handle this, and I'm going to find it if I can."  
  
"Great," Carter said dully, depressed again by the whole situation.  
  
"I'll let you know as soon as something happens."  
  
"Thanks," He said, hanging up. He sat back down, exhaling deeply, putting his head in his hands.  
  
Not needing to look up, he heard the sound of metal hitting the ground as Kerry came over and took a seat in the chair facing him, setting her coffee down onto an end table.  
  
"Carter, are you okay?" she asked in a surprisingly gentle voice. "I couldn't help overhearing-" Carter snorted at this, "-part of your conversation. Do you want to tell me what's going on?"  
  
"No, but you're going to find out eventually, just like everyone else," he sighed. He looked up at Kerry, who's eyebrows were raised. "They--the Summit County Children's Services office--ran a background check on me-"  
  
"This is the group of people who has custody of Grace, correct?"  
  
"Yes," he continued. "Anyway, my--my addiction came up in the search." Kerry's face showed a shadow of concern at these words.  
  
"Is it going to affect the adoption process?" Carter nodded.  
  
"They're going to need to delay it a lot. Representatives are going to be sent here, as far as I know. They're probably going to swarm over the place, asking people questions about me, my attitude, mental stability, all of that." He took a breath and continued. "There's going to be a full hearing, according to the family lawyer. I might have to make an appearance over in Ohio at the office. It's going to be a lot more than I thought, than anybody thought."  
  
He now knew that he saw a full-fledged look of pity in Kerry's face.  
  
"I'm sorry, Carter," she said. "I'll do everything I can to help you, okay?"  
  
"Thanks, Kerry," he nodded. She nodded with him.  
  
"Okay," she said. She suddenly glanced at her watch. "Go home, Carter. You were off an hour ago."  
  
"Thanks again," he said, rising and collecting his things, reoriented. Kerry turned and emptied the half-cup of coffee that was left in the mug into the sink. She turned to leave the lounge, hand on the door, when Carter caught up with her. "Kerry, could you do me a favor?" She raised her eyebrows again.  
  
"Sure, Carter, what?"  
  
"Could you try to keep this between us for now?"  
  
"Of course. Anything that you tell me is confidential." Carter gave her a small smile.  
  
"Thanks Kerry." She smiled at him.  
  
"You know," she said, hand still on the door. "It's a good thing you moved out of my basement apartment."  
  
Carter couldn't help but laugh as she left the room and headed for the board. He lingered for a moment, turned and left the room, heading out the door.

* * *

So there it is, that's all for chapter 17. Chapter 18 coming within the week, hopefully. I tried not to leave you all with too much of a cliffie, though.  
  
Reader shout-outs:  
  
MeliGurlJo- Thank you again for your feedback for the last 17 chapters! You totally rock!  
  
psalm 51- I really appreciate your reviews as well. I can't believe that you are such a loyal reviewer, and I love having your input cuz you're so honest. Thanks!  
  
Lily- I'll try not to. Believe me, I am almost as eager to get them together as you are!  
  
Shadow Spade- Thanks! Sorry bout the wait, but I hope it was worth it.  
  
Starlight125- Wow! That must have taken you a loooong time, you must be an avid reader! Thanks a bunch, keep on reading! Again, all feedback is greatly appreciated, no comment will go ignored. If you want to, you can even e-mail me, my address is my penname at , so you have no excuse not to contact me (lol)  
  
Thanks a bunch!  
  
Snapdragon247 


	18. Luck

DISCLAIMER: If you really want to, click the back button on your browser and read it. But only if you want to.  
  
Okay, so here's the 18th chapter! Sorry its so short, but it's more good news for Carter

* * *

SAVING GRACE—CHAPTER 18

* * *

The echo of the doorbell throughout the cavernous house made Carter look up from the paper he had been reading. Knowing that the butler would answer the door, he folded the paper and set it onto the countertop. He quickly brushed a wrinkle out of his shirt and stepped down the polished wood hallway to meet the man who had called at the door.  
  
When he arrived at the front door a few moments later, he found that the tall, thin and balding butler Alger had just closed the huge front door on the cold, gray October day. Another man stood just inside the door, face slightly flushed from the cold.  
  
Mr. Conway was an older man, with thick gray hair and a strong, youthful complexion. He was a lawyer, no doubt, judging from his manner of dress, which was currently a suit and tie underneath his coat. He greeted Carter with a brief smile and nod in his direction.  
  
"Good afternoon, John," he said, handing Alger his coat and hat.  
  
"Afternoon, Ralph," Carter returned the greeting. He gestured toward another room with his hand. "Shall we?" he asked. Conway nodded.  
  
"Of course, of course." Carter led him into a familiar room, a well-lit meeting room with a large polished table and several old family photographs, mostly black and white, hanging framed from the papered walls. Four tall windows let the dull, gray weather outside into the room. Carter showed Conway to a seat at the table, he himself sitting across from the lawyer.  
  
"Okay, let's get down to business, shall we?" Conway asked, hoisting a leather briefcase onto the tabletop and snapping it open. He took out a small stack of papers to go over with Carter, and closed the case again.  
  
"Yes, let's. I'm eager to get this whole thing over with," Carter replied, folding his arms on the table.  
  
"All right," Conway said, lifting several sheets of paper off the top of the stack. He began to go over each bit of paper with Carter, explaining what each was.  
  
It turned out that there were several more things that he had to do before he could adopt Grace, now that the drug addiction had come into the scheme of things. First, there would be a lot of tedious paperwork that he and Conway would have to complete, and lots of agreements, statements,, etc., that he would have to sign. Most of these papers, Carter found out, were very repetitive, concerning the fact that he would never go to drugs again and that he would do everything required to provide economic and emotional support for "the child in question."  
  
In addition to all of the tedious paperwork, he would have to undergo a series of tests; physical and mental competency examinations were among these. He was told it was standard procedure that he would have had to do anyway, but he couldn't help thinking that they would want the ful story of his encounter with the narcotics.  
  
"Don't worry," Conway told him. "I've worked with some strange characters before, and I know what a nut is. You should not have a problem at all passing those little tests."  
  
Carter wasn't sure he was comforted by this remark.  
  
The SCCS was also going to be intruding unpleasantly into Carter's social and personal life. As he found out from Conway, not only would he have to sit through an interview with an SCCS representative, that representative would be staying for an extra day. He or she would then go around the hospital, finding people who knew him, and interviewing them about his mental and emotional stability.  
  
"That is way below the belt," Carter commented upon hearing this bit of information.  
  
"It's a low blow, all right," Conway agreed. "But it is necessary. Let's just hope you have more friends than enemies at that hospital."  
  
Carter learned that he would also be forced to conform his apartment to child-safe regulations. Conway gave him a list, a very long list, of requirements from the SCCS and from DCFS (the Department of Child and Family Services in Chicago). Carter glanced over the list, and realized that most of the stuff on it was just common sense: locking medicine cabinets, putting child safety handles on doors to cupboards containing harmful chemicals, stuff like that.  
  
Finally, though, Carter learned about the final step to getting his little girl back: the hearing. It would be held on a date to be set, in the main courthouse of Summit County in the city of Akron, Ohio. This hearing would be held after everything else--the interviews and inspections--was finished.  
  
Usually, said Conway, these things were pretty simple, and the whole thing should not last much longer than half an hour. If he won, he would officially be able to adopt Grace that same day.  
  
"There's not a chance you'll lose, there's too much pulling for you," Conway had said around noon, as Alger brought in cold drinks from the kitchen.  
  
Carter was glad to hear that.  
  
These reassuring words stuck with him, in fact, through the following days that he spent waiting with bated breath.  
  
Several days later, he received an unexpected surprise. It arrived sealed carefully in a white envelope, with his name and the address of the hospital printed in upright script on the front. Though the writing was much too neat to have been formed by a child's hand, the return address told him that the letter was from Grace.  
  
"Oh, man," Carter had groaned after he saw the return address on the envelope after Randi handed it to him at the Admit desk. She had given him a puzzled expression and answered the ringing telephone. "I promised her I'd give her my home address, and I never did," he explained to Randi, who was only half listening to whoever was on the other end of the phone as she nodded in understanding to what he was saying.  
  
"What?" Luka asked from behind, his thick accent recognizable even before Carter turned around to see the speaker.  
  
"He got a letter from Grace," Randi told him, hanging up the phone and scrawling something on a Post-it note. She didn't look up, but Luka raised his eyebrows.  
  
"Oh?" he asked. Carter gave a half-nod, holding up the envelope.  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"That's a nice surprise." Carter smiled.  
  
"It is, I haven't read it yet, though." Luka sat down behind the desk and began to review the chart of a deceased patient that he would have to present at the M&M overview later that day [a/n by the way, that stands for Morbidity and Mortality].  
  
"Oh," he said, not looking up from the chart. There was a short silence, and Carter remembered something that Luka had said earlier.  
  
"Hey, weren't you supposed to leave for Africa last week?"  
  
"Yeah, but I couldn't get the time off. I'm going to leave next week, my schedule's rearranged and everything."  
  
"Gotcha," he said, glancing up and around at the ER. It was only 8:00 in the morning, so the chairs area was sparsely populated, and Carter only had two patients. It's quiet enough, he thought to himself, wondering if he should make time to open the envelope.  
  
It wasn't a hard decision to make, he thought as he took a seat on one of the stools at the Admit desk. Shoving a small stack of charts aside, he tore into the envelope swiftly, albeit carefully, with the blade of an open pair of scissors. He pulled out two sheets of white paper, covered in the large, carefully penciled handwriting of a child.  
  
"_Dear Daddy_," it began innocently.  
  
"_Hi, how are you? I am fine. I am back with the Thompsons in Ohio, but I wish I was with you. I miss you lots.  
_  
"_When I was gone, Brian left the house. Yesterday a new boy came. His name is Thomas and he is 13. His legs are both broken. Iris says that's why he came. He is nice. He says we match. But he can't use crutches like me.  
_  
"_I had to go back to school. I like school most of the time. Not at the new school, though. The kids make fun of me, and the teacher calls me Gracie, which I don't like. She calls me a smart cookie, and the other kids call me teacher's pet.  
_  
"_I hope you're OK, and that your head doesn't hurt anymore. I only had to ask for help 7 times to spell words. Tell Elizabeth and everyone I said hello. I miss you.  
_  
"_Love, Grace_."  
  
Carter smiled, rereading the letter again before folding it carefully and slipping it into his pocket, knowing he needed to get back to work soon.  
  
He was so glad to have heard from Grace, though he felt completely awful for breaking his promise to give her his home address. "Some father you'll be," a voice said inside of his mind. "Already breaking promises."  
  
Carter shook the voice out of his head. That wasn't true, he thought to himself as he absentmindedly fiddled with the pair of scissors on the desk that he had used to open the letter. Sliding the blades back and forth was almost calming for him.  
  
The more he thought about Grace, the more his heart ached for her. He wanted nothing more than he wanted to be a good father for his daughter.  
  
With all of this court stuff happening, he wasn't off to a great start. At least, not in the minds of the oh-so-wonderful folks at SCCS.  
  
Carter never dreamed that it would be so difficult to adopt his own child. In all of the cases that he had heard of from Adele Newman, the hospital's social worker, family services organizations were generally so glad to have the biological parent adopting the child that the parent hardly had to do anything but sign a few papers.  
  
The whole thing was ridiculous, he decided. He had been addicted to painkillers, but only for around 4 months. Some people hardly considered it an addiction, especially when he had been in a room with alcoholics who had been like that for 5 or 10 years. He had gone through a rehab program in Atlanta that had lasted almost as long as his addiction had.  
  
"Carter," Randi's voice cut into his reverie.  
  
"Hmm?" he mumbled, coming back into the present and looking around. Randi held up a very large brown envelope.  
  
"X-rays are back on your abdominal pain in 3." Carter stood up and took the films from Randi's hands.  
  
"Thank you," he said, swooping off down the hallway and through the door into Curtain 3 where his patient was waiting with his wife.  
  
"Hey doc," the middle-aged, potbellied man asked him. His anxious wife was gripping his had so hard that it looked painful.  
  
"Yeah, Mr. Ascor, we've got your X-rays back, so let's just take a look at them." He snapped the films up onto the board and flipped on the backlight.  
  
What he saw wasn't pleasant, and Mr. Ascor seemed to be able to sense it.  
  
"What is it, doc?" he asked, patting his wife's hand to signal to her to loosen her own grip. She did so, though reluctantly.  
  
"It looks like you've perforated your small bowel, and there's air leaking in and the bacteria that is supposed to stay in your bowel is leaking out. I think you are developing an infection called peritonitis, which is why your temperature is high."  
  
"That's not good, but you can cure it, right?" Carter nodded, pulling up a chair and sitting facing his patient.  
  
"Yes, we can, but unfortunately it will require surgery, and you'll need to sign a release form."  
  
Mr. Ascor signed the form, and was later transferred up to surgery to have the operation. The poor man was in for a very long stay in the hospital while the toxins were cleaned out of his body.  
  
The rest of the day went pretty normally for Carter. He worked with a couple of traumas, and treated several more people, getting caught up in the rush of working in the Emergency room. Much of the morning was a blur, and he was relieved to find that he had time to grab something quick in the cafeteria for lunch.  
  
On the way back into the lounge to eat his lunch of a sandwich and coffee, Jerry flagged him down, removing the telephone from where it had been cradled between his chin and his shoulder.  
  
"Dr. Carter, your attorney's on the phone for you," he said, holding the receiver to his shoulder, so that the person on the other end would not be able to hear the conversation. Carter waved his hand at Jerry, as if swatting at an imaginary gnat.  
  
"I'm not here," he said. Jerry nodded, speaking into the telephone once more. Carter had just turned to go back into the lounge when--  
  
"Carter, he says to get your ass over there and talk to him." He rolled his eyes and trudged over to the desk, setting down his lunch and taking the phone reluctantly from Jerry, who shrugged at him before turning away to file a chart. Carter cleared his throat.  
  
"John Carter," he said, leaning against the counter.  
  
"Do you think I'm stupid or something?" Conway's voice said over the phone. Carter hoped that it was a rhetorical question. "I use that line on people too much to fall for it."  
  
"All right, all right," Carter said. Conway went on as if he hadn't heard him.  
  
"Did it ever occur to you that I might have good news?"  
  
"No." Carter said frankly.  
  
"Well, I do. I've made a few phone calls."  
  
"And?"  
  
"Well, earlier, I got to thinking. DCFS doesn't complain if the birth parent shows up to adopt the child, and doesn't give most addictions a second thought as long as there was evidence of rehab." He began. "So I considered your case again. You are obviously eager to get your little girl back to Chicago for good. Your little problem with drugs was very short-lived, and you went through rehab and have been clean for over 4 years now."  
  
"Yeah, and...?" Carter urged him on. He wanted to know where this was going.  
  
"Well, After reconsidering the insane things that SCCS wanted you to do, I get to thinking, 'This is ridiculous. Why are they keeping him from his kid?' So I made a few phone calls, one of them was to the Richard Brodthed, the main director of SCCS. I run the case by him, try to talk some sense into him. He's reluctant, but he admits to me that there really isn't a point to the mental and physical exams, because you're a doctor anyway. They wouldn't let a doctor work if he was mentally ill."  
  
"Uh huh," Carter interjected. His spirits lightened a bit at these words.  
  
"He also said that he saw how four years with no recurrence was great for the drug rehab thing. He says he has no problems with that. And since that isn't a real problem, he says, then the co-worker interviews are pointless, too. I bring up the apartment inspection, and the guy sits on it. Then he says that it doesn't seem necessary, either.  
  
"Then," he continued. "He apologizes to me for misunderstandings, and tells me that the only necessary step for you to take is to come to the hearing, which, he says, is only a formality anyway."  
  
"Oh, man," Carter said, a smile spreading from ear to ear. He laughed in relief and in happiness. "I don't believe it!"  
  
"Well, believe it. And by the way, the date for the hearing has been set."  
  
"When is it?"  
  
"It's going to be in a week, on Saturday morning at 9:30. You'll have your daughter by noon."  
  
"This is great!" Carter exclaimed, almost not daring to believe that the news was true. He turned his head to find that Susan, Deb, Haleh and Jerry were all staring at him. Rolling his eyes, he turned his attention back to Conway on the phone. "So, what do I need to do?"  
  
"You need to be at the Cuyahoga Falls City Courthouse by 9:00 that morning. Make sure you're early. I'll be there, too, of course. I'll get in touch with you, though, to get some final things in order. For now, though, that's all." Carter laughed softly under his breath. He almost couldn't believe this.  
  
"Really? Thank you."  
  
"Don't mention it. It's my job," Conway said gruffly over the phone. "Do you have any questions?" Carter shook his head, even though he knew that Conway couldn't see the gesture.  
  
"No, not right now. I probably will later, though. Thanks again."  
  
"You're welcome. I'll get in touch with you soon with more information."  
  
"Great, I'm looking forward to it."  
  
"I know you are. You should get back to work now. You still sorry I called?" Carter laughed.  
  
"Definitely not. You're right, though, I do need to get back to work."  
  
"Okay, I'll speak to you later," Conway said. There was a short pause, then a click on the other end that told him that the attorney had hung up the phone.  
  
Carter turned around and hung up the phone back on its base, still smiling happily. He was going to have Grace with him in just under a week! This was going to be a huge change in his life, but Carter knew that it was for the best of everyone concerned. It was all becoming very real to him.  
  
He was jolted out of the reverie by a throat clearing loudly. He looked around to find the small crowd of before, in addition to Yosh, looking at him curiously with raised eyebrows. Carter tried his best to look as normal as possible, reducing his huge grin to a small smile, though he found that he couldn't stop grining altogether.

* * *

Okay, so the ending sucks, but there's one more chapter coming after this. We're nearing the end, folks, sorry to disappoint. There's a chance that I'll write some other stuff as Grace grows up, but it depends on whether people will read it.  
  
Anyway, I'd like to thank all of my reviewers for their feedback. It's greatly appreciated.  
  
I'm getting started on the next chapter :)  
  
Ciao!  
  
Snapdragon 


	19. Reunited

DISCLAIMER: I don't own anyone from the cast of ER, I'm just borrowing them for a little while.

Okay, guys! This is the last chapter in the Saving Grace series (sniff). I'm sure you're all getting sick of it by now, though, so if you are, you won't have to worry about it anymore. Though I must say, I have enjoyed you all reading my fic, and thanks for your reviews.

For those of you who can't get enough of Carter and Grace, there's good news. I am officially going to start a new series, which will explore Grace's relationship with Carter and interactions with the world around them. It will have more stuff with Elizabeth, particularly involvement with Ella, and of course the rest of the ER staff.

Thanks for sticking with me, guys and girls! Here it is, the final chapter of the Saving Grace series!

* * *

Saving Grace--Chapter 19

* * *

A pair of very nervous brown eyes stared back at him out of the mirror, pupils slightly narrowed in the bright, fluorescent light of the bathroom. The view of the rest of his face was slightly obscured by the condensation clinging to the glass from the hot water of his shower.

These hotels really needed to get fans in their bathrooms, he thought as he swiped at some of the water with an extra towel, leaving a streaky circle in the center. He could see his own face more clearly now. As he looked at his own eyes, he could almost see the butterflies in his stomach through them.

Butterflies, he laughed quietly. More like high-strung kangaroos. That was an interesting visual, he thought as he brushed his teeth in front of the mirror.

He was nervous as hell. And that was an understatement.

It was finally the day he had been waiting for, and here he was, a nervous wreck who was fumbling with the buttons on his white Oxford. He pulled on his trousers and belt, tucking the shirt in neatly. Carter withdrew a deep burgundy silk tie from his garment bag and slung it around his neck, tying a loose knot and hiding what he could under the flaps of his shirt collar.

As he tightened the knot, he felt as if he was tightening a noose around his own neck.

"Get it together, Carter," he muttered angrily at his reflection. "You've handled worse than this."

The nurses, of course, had let the news out quickly after he told them about his phone conversation with Ralph Conway, the family attorney. The following day, he had talked to Kerry about taking time off to go and get his daughter settled in. He told her that he would be gone for three days: the first to drive down to the Buckeye state, the second to drive back, and the third to get Grace settled in to her new home.

Her new home. He smiled at the thought. She was his daughter. They'd be together forever.

Kerry had been generous. Rather than Carter having to trade shifts, she granted him four free days to use as personal days.

"John, you've got some personal days saved up," she had said, smiling. "Go ahead, stay for a week if you want to. Best of luck." He had thanked her profusely, promising that he would be back into work as soon as he could, to which Kerry insisted that he take his time.

The staff of the ER, and a few select people from other departments, was thrilled to hear that Grace was going to be coming to Chicago for good. Haleh and Connie enthusiastically volunteered their own babysitting services. Susan had thought of something that Carter himself hadn't, which was that he would probably be visiting the house that Barbara Knight had once lived in with Grace, and would need to bring some of her things back with him. As she keenly reminded him, his Jeep was ill suited to this task, and she eagerly volunteered Chuck's Ford pick-up truck for the occasion.

"He won't mind, trust me," she said reassuringly as she signed off on a patient chart. "Just try to bring it back in one piece.

Carter had made a trip to the grocery store to make sure that he had food for when Grace arrived. He also cleaned up the spare bedroom of his apartment, vacuuming up the dust bunnies from the floor and clearing out the dresser and closet. He figured that he would take Grace shopping after she got there to buy a bedspread and curtains and such. Carter cleaned out the rest of his apartment, making preparations for the arrival of his daughter.

So he had left the day before, after a half-shift from 8 to 2. He packed his overnight bag, pulled up driving directions and a map, filled the gas tank and started off on the journey into Ohio. It had been a long, 6-hour journey, on long, monotonous interstate highways, listening to his own music, courtesy of the compact disk.

Carter had arrived in town at around 9 pm that night, and checked into a Holiday Inn Express off of the major intrastate highway just outside of the city of Akron, where the hearing was to be held the following morning.

Carter rechecked his reflection in the mirror, deciding at the last minute not to wear his suspenders [A/N lol I hate those suspenders, srry but I could not let them make an appearance in this story]. He gathered his toiletries and left the bathroom, stepping into the burgundy-adorned room where he had slept the night before. He plucked up the t-shirt he had worn the previous day off of the rumpled sheets of the bed and stuffed it into his bag with the toiletries,

After a last, sweeping look at the room to make sure that he hadn't forgotten anything, he slung the bag over his shoulder and tucked his sport coat under his arm and left the room. He checked his watch. 8:15. He had a little bit of time.

After eating a quick breakfast of coffee and a bagel, he checked out of the hotel and loaded his things back into the borrowed pick-up truck. He was on his way. The day was gray and the skies were threatening to open. Half an hour and two wrong turns later, he arrived in the parking lot of what was unmistakably the courthouse.

It was a large old building, built of deep-red brick and at least three stories high. The front of the roof seemed to be held up by four symmetric, white, Roman-style pillars that stretched the height of the building. Imprinted capital letters under the alcove point of the roof near the top of the building spelled out the words 'Summit County Courthouse.' Carter straightened his tie nervously and began to climb the two-dozen steps up to the huge oak front doors.

Placing a hand on the brass doorknob, Carter pulled the door open and stepped inside. It was a nice place, overall. The age of the building seemed to hang in the air, reminding those who entered of the time it had stood on that ground. The wood plank floors were polished and slick. It was well lit by a chandelier that hung in the atrium, and several other lights throughout.

Carter didn't have too long to be worried about where he should go, where he should be, because hardly a minute later Conway burst through the door and shut it quickly behind him. He stomped the water off of his shoes and brushed a few stray droplets off of his coat. He spotted Carter quickly.

"You look like you missed the rain," he said, taking off his coat and hanging it over his arm.

"When did it start?"

"A minute ago, looks like it'll get worse," he said. He looked Carter up and down quickly. "You make it okay?"

"Yeah, not too many problems getting here. I'm confused about where I'm supposed to be right now." Conway nodded.

"Okay, we're going to be in room 4, just down through this hall, last door to the left," he said, gesturing toward a corridor ahead of them. Carter followed him down the hallway and through another door.

They were in another room, but Carter knew that this was not a courtroom. This was a larger area, with several chairs lining the wall, a few small metal thermoses filled with coffee and boiling water, Styrofoam cups and coffee and tea fixings. The room was carpeted and had a tall window through which Carter could both see and hear the rain that was now pounding angrily against the pane. There were six doors into and out of this room: the one through which they had entered, one each for male and female restrooms, one which led inevitably to the actual courtroom, and two others that led to unknown locations. Conway caught onto the mild confusion on Carter's face.

"It's just an area to relax while we wait for the hearing to begin," he explained, hanging his coat on a nearby coat rack. He checked his watch. "It's only 9:00, we should only have to wait 15 or 20 more minutes until they open the doors anyway." Carter nodded and put his hands into his pockets nervously.

"Okay," he said. He took a seat in one of the cushioned chairs in the large room. Conway nodded and sat down in a chair to his right.

"All we can do now is wait," the attorney said. Carter exhaled, drumming his fingers on the wooden arms of the chair. The butterflies in his stomach seemed to have multiplied since he entered the courthouse.

Conway toted his briefcase over and sat down beside Carter. He opened the leather case and began to review some papers, leaving Carter some time to think. He gazed absentmindedly out the window, where the rain was still pattering quickly and with strength. His thoughts remained blank for the few minutes that he was sitting there uninterrupted.

The sound of a doorknob turning brought him out of the reverie and his head snapped up, turning in the direction of the noise. The door to his right opened, and a small procession of people entered the room. The first was a heavy-set man with a full mustache and a head of thinning brown hair, who turned upon entering the room and held the door open for the people who were to follow.

"Here we are, everyone," he said to the space out the door. A tanned boy with short, dark hair and wire-rimmed glasses appeared in the room in a wheelchair, pushed by a girl with long, light-brown hair who was dressed in a skirt and top. A younger Black boy with short hair and a surly expression followed the older children into the room and quickly sat in the nearest chair, arms crossed across his chest. Last into the room came Grace, on her crutches and followed closely by a slim woman with short blond hair.

The moment that Grace caught sight of Carter, her eyes lit up and her face broke into a wide grin. Carter smiled back at her, almost unable to contain his excitement at seeing her again. The butterflies in his stomach seemed to all die as soon as he saw the little girl again.

"Daddy!" she said excitedly, hobbling over to him as fast as she could so that he could wrap her in a hug. He held her for a moment, catching the faint scent of strawberries in her hair.

"Hey, kiddo," he said. He let go of the embrace and she looked up at him, her eyes shining. He noticed that every eye in the room was turned to the two of them. "Good Morning," he said to them. The mustached man stepped forward.

"You must be Dr. Carter," he said, extending his hand. "Jeff Thompson, and this is my wife Linda," he said, indicating the woman standing next to him. She smiled softly, shaking Carter's hand after husband had.

"Yes," he said. "John Carter, and you must be Grace's foster parents." The woman, Linda, nodded and smiled.

Carter was led around the room, Grace introducing the others to him. The girl with the long hair turned out to be Iris Bercot, Grace's friend at the foster home. The Black boy was Lamont Love, and the boy in the wheelchair introduced himself as Thomas Benson. Carter smiled at him as he shook hands with the 13-year-old, noticing that he was wearing long trousers to hide the casts on his legs, but could do nothing to conceal the plaster that covered both feet.

Conway introduced himself to the Thompsons, explaining some of the legality of the whole situation. Carter was only half-listening. He had sat down again on the chair, and Grace had seated herself comfortably on his right knee. The little girl was dressed in a nice baby-blue dress, socks and buckled Mary Janes. Her straight blond hair was pulled away from her face with barrettes that were fastened on either side of her head.

He couldn't help marveling that this tiny, perfect little girl was his, that he helped to bring her to life. He didn't know much about her, but he knew that he loved her beyond all reason.

And so the hearing commenced after that, Carter and Conway seated on one side of the room, and the two representatives from SCCS on the other. The Thompsons waited outside of the courtroom with Grace to give her support and keep her company waiting for a verdict. The judge had decided that she might not want to hear some of the things that were discussed, though did not tell her so to her face.

After a while into the hearing, though, Carter understood why. Though a hearing is not as formal as an actual trial, sensitive questions were asked, many of which concerning the events behind his drug usage, the rehabilitation program in Atlanta, etc. Conway turned out to be right, though: there was so much pulling in Carter's favor that it was difficult to find a reason to deny custody.

Finally, the end of the hearing came after 45 minutes of debates and questions. The judge asked both parties to rise. Carter stood, a hint of nervousness shone on his face. He hoped that the judge didn't see it. He straightened his tie and smoothed a wrinkle from his shirt. Conway nudged him from beside, and all eyes turned to the judge.

"Dr. John Carter, the State of Ohio and Summit County Children's Services hereby grants you custody of the child in question, Miss Grace Elizabeth Knight. You will approach the bench, please, to sign the official papers," the judge spoke with a smile on his face. Carter was almost numb with joy and shock as his feet carried him up to the bench. A pen was handed to him, and he signed his name, forever claiming Grace as his child.

He placed the pen on the surface and thanked the judge as he turned and the hearing was dismissed. The two men from SCCS approached him as they made it their way to the room from which they had entered.

"Best of luck, Dr. Carter," the man with a large, bushy mustache told him, holding out his hand. Carter shook it, smiling. The other man shook his hand as well.

"You may go back to the Thompson household to retrieve your daughter's things, and then you may go back to Chicago with her," he said, shaking Carter's hand as well.

"Thank you, sir," he said. Conway stepped in to shake their hands as well.

"I have a question for you gentlemen," he said, speaking in his best gruff voice. "I was told that it could be arranged for Dr. Carter to visit the house of Miss Barbara Knight, with whom Grace lived before her death, in order to retrieve some belongings."

"Yes, yes, of course, I'm sure that can be arranged." Conway went off with the two of them, leaving Carter alone in the room. He had been so euphoric before that he had failed to notice the others who were sitting in the room. It looked as if the four children had been immersed in a game of cards. Upon his reentrance into the room, they had stopped the game, Iris holding a card out in midair, and turned to look at him. Mr. and Mrs. Thompson, both holding Styrofoam cups filled with coffee, turned toward him as well. They were all expecting him to say something, he guessed as he stepped into the room.

He smiled. No words were needed.

There were acclamations of excitement from everybody except Grace. Even as a child, she did not have anything to say, but the beaming grin on her face and shining eyes said all that needed to be said.

They all left the courthouse together to go to the Thompson household for coffee and lunch. Carter drove his truck and followed the others through the curvy, wet roads to the house in the suburbs of Cuyahoga Falls. The weather was relentless; rain was pounding on the windshield of the truck and clinging to the street signs, making them difficult to read.

After about 15 minutes, he followed the deep red minivan into the driveway of a house. It was a small ranch-style house, with pale blue siding and navy shutters and trim. The front yard was green, and the flowers at the front of the house were well-kept and weeded. There was a small front porch, on which sat a wicker rocking chair and a matching swing that attached to the ceiling.

The garage door opened and the van parked comfortably inside, while Carter parked the pickup out in the driveway. As the children climbed out and helped Thomas into his wheelchair and Grace out of the car with her crutches, Jeff Thompson emerged from the driver's seat and opened the door that led into the house. He beckoned Carter into the house, and Carter quickly jumped out of the truck and walked quickly toward the house, arm shielding his face from the pouring rain.

The interior of the house was as neat, clean, and organized as the outside had been. He entered into a tiny room that housed a washing machine and clothes dryer that were silent for the moment. Following Mr. Thompson through a short corridor with only one door, he turned through and found himself in the kitchen. The kitchen was also ordered well, with linoleum flooring and a wallpaper border of garden herbs surrounding the room. Just across from the kitchen area was a scrubbed wooden table with six chairs surrounding it, complete with placemats at each place and a napkin holder in the center.

"Welcome to our home, Dr. Carter," Mrs. Thompson said, hurrying about to see that the children's shoes were left at the door on the mat.

"Oh, please, call me John," Carter said to her. "And thank you so much for having me here." Mr. Thompson took Carter's coat from him and hung it in a small closet in another hallway. Carter stood there nervously for a moment. He saw Grace make to go and play with the others, but out of the corner of his eye he caught Mrs. Thompson nudging her shoulder and looking meaningfully at him. Grace nodded.

"Daddy," she said to him, catching his attention. "Do you want to see the house?"

"I would love to," he told her. She took his hand and led him through the kitchen and into the family room, where the TV and stereo were. After that, she led him through another hallway, which contained four doors, turning out to be the master bedroom, the bedroom for the boys, the one where Grace and Iris slept, and the bathroom that they shared.

"Mr. and Mrs. Thompson have their own bathroom," she explained. "But their bedroom and bathroom are off-limits areas."

Carter saw the study, the formal dining room, and the backyard (from inside, as it was still raining). The tour concluded with a look at the basement of the house, half of which was furnished as a play area with shelves of board games, toys, and videos for the television. The other half was more of an adult area, with a ping-pong table and an upright piano.

"Who's the piano player?" Carter asked his daughter, looking at the piano.

"Mrs. Thompson plays. She's really good. Sometimes, she teaches me and Iris and Thomas to play stuff, too. Lamont doesn't care, though. He doesn't like the music," she explained. She made her way over to the wooden bench and pulled it out, sitting down and setting her crutches on the floor. "Do you want to hear me play? I'm not very good, though."

"I would love to hear you play the piano, sweetheart," he said, smiling softly. Grace nodded, a look of intense concentration on her face. She bit her bottom lip and set her fingers on the keys, looking as if she was trying to remember a song to play.

"Okay, this is called Lightly Row," she told him. Grace placed her hands in position and began to play a tune, though only with her right hand. A few of the notes were broken, but it sounded okay to Carter, who had never so much as tried to play the piano before. When the short ditty had drawn to a close, Grace looked up at him apprehensively, as if worried that she hadn't played well enough. He smiled warmly at her.

"That was excellent," he said. She beamed up at him.

"Thanks! I try to practice, but sometimes it's hard," she said, retrieving the crutches and pushing herself up off of the piano bench. She carefully lowered the lid onto the white ivory keys and looked up at Carter. "I think you've seen the whole house now," she told him.

"I guess I have," he said. Grace nodded and led him back up the stairs into the kitchen area, where Mr. And Mrs. Thompson sat at the table talking amongst themselves. Upon Carters entrance into the kitchen, the conversation stopped and they turned to look at him.

"Finished the tour?" Mrs. Thompson asked. Grace nodded.

"Yep," she said.

"I heard you playing on the piano. You are getting very good at that," she said, smiling at the child.

"Thank you," she said. She glanced sideways down the hall to where the other kids were playing, then back to Carter.

"Well, Dr. Carter, can we get you anything to drink? Coffee, water, soda?" Mr. Thompson asked. Grace took this as her cue to exit, crutches clicking on the wooden floors of the hallway as she made her way back to her bedroom.

"No, thank you, Mr. Thompson, and please, call me John."

"Only if you'll call me Jeff," he said with a friendly smile. Carter nodded, also smiling.

After an hour or so of friendly conversation, most of which concerning pros and cons of the men's occupations (Jeff was the co-owner of a landscaping company) and the wide world of sports, lunch was served at the kitchen table. It was simple-- sandwiches, potato chips, and apple slices—but Carter enjoyed it nonetheless. They had had to pull up another chair from the dining room to make a space for him at the table. He found the setting and atmosphere of the house enjoyable and pleasant. He was glad that Grace had been placed with such a great foster family.

After lunch, it was time to pack and say good-bye. Grace went into her bedroom and began to collect her things, with Carter watching and helping her. He noticed that, though she was excited about coming to live with him, she had a heavy heart as she tried her best to fold the few clothes she had there, tucking them into a blue duffel bag.

Grace carefully went into the closet and pulled a dress off of its hanger, hobbling back to her bed, where the duffel bag lay open. She placed it into the bag somewhat sadly, avoiding Carter's eyes. He wanted to help her, but could tell that this was something that she wanted to do on her own. So he stood, leaning up against the doorframe of the room, and watched as his daughter packed up the remnants of her stay with the foster family. Though it had been a relatively short stay, the Thompsons seemed to have had an impact on the small girl, making it difficult for her to leave.

"Okay, I'm finished," she said quietly, zipping up the duffel bag. She sat down on the edge of the bed, crutches at her side, with her head down, staring at her feet. Carter gently shifted the duffel to the side and sat down next to her at the foot of the bed.

"Okay," he said, nodding, as he shifted the duffel bag down onto the beige carpet. He glanced around the room. "Did you make sure you aren't forgetting anything?"

"Yes."

"Where's Squirt?" he asked, remembering the stuffed octopus that Grace had clung to during her stay at County General.

"In my backpack," she answered, not looking up. Carter nodded.

"Okay," he said. There was a pause, and Carter could sense that the child was anxious about leaving. "Sweetheart, are you ready to go?" Grace shrugged her shoulders. She sat for a moment, then suddenly turned and faced him, a new resolve in her face.

"Yep," she said, smiling. She took a deep breath. "I'm ready." Carter smiled, smoothing her hair with his hand.

"Are you sure? Do you want some more time?" She shook her head, hair swinging lightly around her face.

"I just need to say good-bye."

"Okay, take all the time you need, kiddo," Carter said, pushing himself off of the bed. He glanced around the small, cozy room where his daughter had spent the last four months, from the matching quilted bedspreads on both of the beds, to the shelves housing photographs of its previous occupants, to the big window with its matching curtains. It was a lovely bedroom, and it was easy to see how a child could be comfortable there.

He took a hold of the duffel bag and lifted it off of the floor. Grace sat for a moment on the bed, then swung her legs over the side and grabbed her crutches, coming down off of the bed and bending down slowly to pick up her backpack and put it on. She quietly led Carter out of the room, stopping in the hallway outside the door to let him pass by her. She took one last sad look at the room, then turned and went down the corridor into the kitchen.

"Ready to go, Grace?" Mrs. Thompson asked from her place at the kitchen table. Her half-open novel and coffee mug were suddenly abandoned when Grace nodded and she rose from the table. Iris and Thomas appeared in the kitchen then, and Iris was halfway to the sink with an empty glass before she really seemed to realize why Grace had her bags packed. She set the glass down and stared.

"Grace, are you leaving already?" she asked. Grace gave a half-shrug, half-nod, looking down at her shoes. Since the hearing that morning, she had changed into a pair of jeans, a t-shirt and sneakers.

"Yeah, I'm leaving," she said. Carter could sense the emotions flooding through the room and decided to go outside and put the duffel bag into the truck. He stepped out the garage door and prepared to run out into the rain until he realized that the rain had stopped. His shoes pattered through the small puddles welled up on the pavement as he walked to the car. Opening the cover on the bed of the truck, he put the bag inside. He closed and locked the lid, glad then that the cover was waterproof.

He made his way back into the house, wiping his shoes on the mat as he went, and walked back into the kitchen. He found that the whole household was assembled and saying their good-byes, wishing Grace the best of luck.

"Be a good girl, okay?" Mrs. Thompson said, bending down to give the little girl a hug.

"I will," Grace replied. Mr. Thompson hugged her next.

"Have fun," he said. She nodded again, her face displaying a complicated pattern of emotions. She seemed happy to be going to live with Carter in Chicago, but sad to be leaving this family that took care of her. She gave a small smile.

"I will," she said again. Thomas sat in his wheelchair, both legs stiff in their casts.

"See ya, kid," he said, smiling at her. "When we get our casts off, we'll have to get together and race each other. Bet I can beat you!"

"Bet you can't," she replied, returning the smile. Iris was the last to say goodbye to her. She approached her and gave her a slip of paper.

"Here's the address, if you ever forget it," she said, "write to me, will you? I've always wanted to go to Chicago, so would you tell me how it is?"

"Sure," she said, taking the paper into her hand. She took off her backpack and tucked the paper into it, zipping it and hoisting it back over her shoulders. Iris gave her a hug.

"Bye, hun," she said. "Stay cool. You're so awesome." They broke away from the embrace, and Carter could see that Grace had tears welling up in her eyes.

"Bye, Iris," she said. She looked at them all, standing there in the kitchen and bidding her farewell. She took a long look at each of them, as if committing their faces to memory. "Goodbye, everyone. Thank you all for everything."

"You are very welcome," Mrs. Thompson said. She was also beginning to get tears in her eyes. Carter put his hand gently on the little girl's shoulder. She looked up at him and slowly turned away from the foster family.

Carter wordlessly led her out to the truck, helping her into the passenger seat. She put her crutches and backpack on the floor in front of her and Carter closed the door, walking around to the driver's side of the vehicle. Climbing up into his own seat, he buckled his seat belt and put the key into the ignition, turning it and hearing the motor start. He glanced over at his daughter.

"Is your seatbelt on?" he asked her. She nodded silently, looking out the window. The headlights of the car went on as he backed out of the driveway. As he got onto the street, he saw that the whole of the household had made their way out to the front porch. Grace rolled down the window of the car, looking out at them.

"Bye!" she shouted, waving out the window.

"Bye, Grace," the calls came from the different members of the foster family as they all waved at her. Carter honked the horn twice as the car pulled away down the road.

Half an hour later, Carter arrived in the driveway of another small house. This was a small, two-story tan house with brown shutters and trim. There were dozens of trees on the property, and a small green front yard. It was 1674 Forest View Drive, Richfield Ohio. Grace recognized the building right away.

"That's Grandma's house!" she said excitedly.

"That's right," Carter said, parking the car and going around to help Grace out.

"How come we're here?" she asked curiously. Carter went around to the bed of the pick-up truck and popped open the cover.

"Well, we are here so that you can get some of your things out of the house and bring them to your new house in Chicago." Grace nodded slowly. Carter looked into the truck bed and snorted with laughter. Once again, Susan had thought of something he hadn't; the truck held a dozen cardboard packing boxes. He pulled two of them out and closed the cover over the truck bed. Heading up the path to the front porch, he fished the key that Conway had given to him out of his pocket. Grace took the lead as they climbed the stairs to the front porch and to the door. Carter turned the key and heard the lock click. Cautiously, as if he wasn't sure what to expect, he turned the knob and pushed the door open.

A smell of dust swooped out toward him as he crossed the threshold. Grace tagged close behind him as he stepped onto the carpeted entrance hallway. It was as if the house had been abandoned for years; the carpet emitted a small puff of dust from under his feet each time he took a step.

"Wow," Grace said softly, almost in disappointment and disbelief. "It's...not the same." Carter nodded slowly. Though he hadn't ever set foot in the house before, he could imagine how it had once been a bright, cheery place. He glanced around quickly, noticing a flight of stairs to his left.

"So, do you want to show me your room?" he asked, in an attempt to distract the child from the disappointment that she hadn't expected. She nodded.

"Sure. It's up here." She cautiously hoisted herself up the flight of stairs on her crutches, with Carter spotting her from behind. When they got to the top of the staircase, there was a small hallway with five doors. Grace led him to the one at the far right of the stairs, turning the handle and pushing the door open.

Carter found himself into a small, but cozy, bedroom, decorated in a butterfly theme. The walls were lightly sponge-painted a very pale pink, with a wallpaper border of butterflies. It looked as if butterflies from the extra wallpaper had been cut with a penknife and glued to the walls and even a few on the ceiling, clustered in various places. A white toddler's bed stood in a corner, sporting a pillow and a lavender, pale pink and white patchwork quilt. The dresser and a toy chest were also white. A set of shelves attached to the wall across from the bed held half a dozen china-faced dolls and other valuables.

"So this was your room?" he asked gently. She nodded, crossing the room and gently touching a lock of a doll's hair. She turned back to him.

"Want to see the rest of the house?"

"Yeah," he answered. The two of them toured the house, beginning with the basement and moving back up to the second floor. She opened each door in turn--one each to the bathroom and tiny linen closet, one to the master bedroom where Barbara had slept, the one to Grace's bedroom, and the last one, which Grace had hesitated to open. They soon returned back to her bedroom.

"So what should I pack first?" she asked him, eyeing the boxes he had carried in with him. Carter set the boxes down, folding the bottom of one in and turning it so that it was ready to be packed.

"Why don't you put some clothes in this one," he said, indicating the box, "and put other things that you want to take with you on the bed so we can wrap them in newspaper first." Grace nodded, and he leaned the other, unfolded box against the wall. "I'll be right back. I'm going to get the rest of the boxes."

He returned with the boxes, carrying them upstairs to the second floor and leaving them outside of the child's bedroom. Carefully being sure not to make too much noise, he went back to look for the bathroom on the first floor. He trudged back up the stairs a couple of minutes later, opening the door to Grace's room and setting the boxes inside.

"Okay, Swee--" he stopped abruptly, eyes finding his daughter lying still on her bed in the corner. She was curled up like a cat on top of the quilt, head on the pillow, fast asleep. Carter smiled. He didn't have the heart to wake her, so he quietly pulled a spare blanket that was folded at the foot of the bed over her sleeping form.

Carter left the room, so as not to wake his sleeping daughter. It had been a long day for her, and she probably needed the rest. They had a long journey ahead of them that day.

While she slept, though, Carter got an idea of his own. Peering into the living room of the house, he wondered if it would be a good idea to pack another box. This would be a box filled with things that Grace would appreciate more as she got older, like pictures and things. He decided against it for now, though, as he was quite sure that it wouldn't be their last trip to the house.

Half of an hour later, he trekked back upstairs to check on his daughter. Though he didn't want to wake her, he knew that they had a lot to do and not a whole lot of time to do it. He gently pushed the door open and peeked inside. To his astonishment, he saw that the room was empty.

A sudden, strange panic came over him. He didn't know where Grace was. He felt his heart begin to race, then forced it down. There was no way she could have left the house, he thought. He left the room and started for the stairs. Before he got there, though, he noticed that one of the other doors in the area that was closed before hung slightly ajar. He approached it and softly opened it more.

Carter's heart flooded with relief as soon as he saw Grace, sitting on a bed in the middle of the room and clutching something in her hands. When he entered she looked up, slightly shocked, then softened her expression.

"This was my mother's room," she explained quickly, as if she knew she was about to be punished. Carter nodded slowly, looking around.

Though the room had obviously not been used for years, it looked clean and undisturbed. A blue and white patterned quilt covered the bed, which was adorned with a few decorative pillows. The dresser, bureau, night table and desk were all built of the same honey-colored wood, and trinkets still rested on the tops of each. The walls were a cream color, with a border of soft pink flowers. Two large windows framed by light, breezy curtains let the sunlight in.

"Oh," he said. So this had been Lucy's room. He could have pictured that. Grace looked at him with uncertain eyes. He smiled at her, and she relaxed a bit.

"I wasn't ever supposed to be in here," she said, "but I used to come sometimes and just sit and think. I got caught sometimes, but Grandma never really punished me, she just gave me this look, like she wanted to cry." Carter nodded, approaching her. Cautiously, he sat on the bed next to her.

"Are you okay?" he asked. She nodded. Carter noticed something in her hands. "What have you got there?" She opened her palms to reveal a necklace. It was exquisite, though very simple; a small, round, perfect, shimmering pearl was suspended from a glittering silver chain. "That's a beautiful necklace, Grace," he told her honestly.

"I know," she nodded, and turned towards him, a question on her lips. She hesitated. "It—it was my mom's," she said. Carter had figured as much. "I don't know...I wanted to take it back with me. Do you think it's okay?" He smiled.

"I think so," he said. "I'm sure that your mom would have loved that." Grace smiled back at him.

"Could you help me put it on?" she asked.

"Sure, kiddo," he replied, taking the necklace and carefully opening the tiny clasp as Grace swept her hair out of the way. He put it back around her neck and fastened the clasp again. Grace let her hair back down and turned back toward Carter, looking at the tiny pearl hanging around her neck.

"Thank you, daddy," she said sincerely, smiling softly. Carter smiled back at her, putting his hands on his knees and rising from the edge of the bed.

"You're welcome," he said. "Now, what do you say we go back and pack up your things?" Grace nodded, and they left for the girl's bedroom.

They spent the good part of the next hour and a half packing up the boxes that they could. Grace packed clothes that she could, occasionally taking something into the bathroom to try it on to make sure that it still fit. Many pairs of shoes didn't pass inspection, as well as several dresses, pairs of pants and sweaters, among other things. With other things, like framed pictures and porcelain dolls, Grace handed the things she wanted to take with her to Carter, who wrapped everything in newspaper and, when he ran out of that, clothing, and packed each item snugly into a box. When the packing was through, the room looked sad and empty, and five of the boxes had been filled.

Carter loaded the packed boxes back into the truck and securely shut the cover on it to keep the rain out. It had started to drizzle lightly again, so that a translucent fog began to accumulate over the ground as the time came to leave for Chicago. He had left Grace inside with another box, in case she saw something that she had forgotten to pack up. He went inside the house to get her. As Grace stood in the yard and looked at the house for a last time, Carter locked the front door and pulled the key out. He turned to look back at his daughter. Her face was filled with a new resolve as she turned and followed him to the truck. He helped her into her seat and got into his own.

They drove away from the house, from the past. They were reunited, and nothing could separate them now as the drove away to begin their new lives.

* * *

Okay! That's the end! Good ending? Bad ending? Tell me in your reviews!!! I am going to be writing something else that will continue Grace's life, a thing with her growing up, if you will.

REVIEWER SHOUT-OUTS:

First of all, you guys are _**AMAZING**_!!! Thank you so much, you've pushed me over 80 reviews!!! That makes me so excited.

MeliGurlJo: Thank you sosososo much, for the positive reviews and everything. You are TOTALLY AWESOME!!! Thank you!

Psalm57: Sorry it had to end. I originally wanted to put the stuff about her growing up in the same story, but I didn't want it to be like 50 chapters long. So it's ending, but not really. Thanks a lot for all of your reviews and feedback.

ShadowSpade: Aww...it makes me happy that I'm making you happy! I love that I'm sort of writing for an audience. I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Thanks for your feedback.

Strayct: Thank you, I hope that you enjoyed this chapter, too. Thanks for sticking around and giving your feedback, I really appreciate it.

Noah Wyle's Chick 1989: I'm glad I'll have a reader for the next series. Like I said, I don't know what it will be called, but I'm sure you'll find it. Thanks!

Allie O'Brien: Thanks! I tried to update as soon as I could. Hope you enjoyed it.

Lucy719: I'm really glad you kept on reading. Thank you for the compliments! I try, anyways. Thanks for reviewing.

Lili: I'm glad that Carter finally has Grace back, too...lol! I was writing the last, like, 5 chapters and hoping that I could get them back together soon.

Okay, so I'm going on vacation next week to Ohio to visit our family friends...excited about that...so I'm going to try to write the first bit of the next story while I'm there and post when I get back around the 21st. Until then, it's hasta la vista, chicas y chicos!

Thanks again to all of you for making this a really fun experience!

Snapdragon247


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